Kenya: Humanitarian disaster looms amongst Somali refugees

For Aaliya Omar Alas, Mar. 20, 2006 is a source of bitter memories. Her husband and son were killed on this day in Somalia, during violence that also dispersed the remaining members of the family. "I am sad because I lost both my husband and son -I do not know where the rest of my family members, four daughters and one son, are. We scattered as we were fleeing the violence," she told IPS at Ifo refugee camp, where she arrived in April. The camp is one of three set up in the vicinity of a town called Dadaab in the arid north-east of Kenya. Alas now waits for news of her surviving children.