The salt caves on the outskirts of Baadweyn in Somalia’s south-east Mudug region, which are normally humming with the sound of axes and shovels, are silent after the recent flash floods stopped all work.

Abdisamad Mohamed Farah, a 40-year-old father of seven, told Radio Ergo that he has worked for 13 years digging salt at one of the four caves in the area, where naturally occurring salt reserves are mined.

“It was our only source of income, so it is a struggle to find other means. We’ve even lost the stock of salt that we’ve been storing there,” Abdisamad said.

He explained that he normally sells each bag of salt for a dollar and a half and stores what he cannot sell in the cave for later. However, all the salt stored in the caves were washed away as flood waters inundated the caves, dashing his hopes of making at least $2,000 from salt sales this year.

His family is now living on the $700 credit he obtained from a local store before the floods. But paying back the loan will now be difficult.

Abdifatah Abdullahi Yusuf, head of the salt workers’ cooperative, told Radio Ergo that 576 people who used to earn daily wages at the salt caves are now out of work. Many of them are also dealing with displacement as the floods forced them out of their homes.

The caves in Baadweyne are normally mined over the course of months, as rainwater enters and evaporates exposing the salt. The salt is sold in markets in southern and central regions of Somalia, as well as over the border in Ethiopia.

Abdifatah added that the workers may not be able to return to the salt caves until next year because the volume of water was so great. Half of the local population are dependent in one way or another on salt production, so this loss will have a negative impact on the local economy as a whole.

Muhidin Ahmed Dirshe, a father of six, told Radio Ergo that he has been working at the salt caves for three years. He settled in the area and decided to work in the caves after losing 150 goats in the drought. Income has been good until the flash floods.

“I had 860 blocks of salt in the caves but I could only save about 70 of them, which I transported out on my back in the dead of the night just as the waters were entering the caves,” he said.

He had been storing up the salt he had dug since March to sell in one batch. But even the little he rescued form the water cannot be sold now because the roads are impassable.

Source: Radio Ergo