How bad is it in Somalia Bad enough that people fleeing the capital have been reduced to renting trees for shelter.

索馬利亞情況有多糟？糟到逃離首都的人淪落到必須租樹遮蔽風雨。

It's the sort of thing that happens when drug-addled warlords roam the countryside, imposing taxes of 50 percent on aid recipients. And the sort of thing to be expected of a government whose prime minister, Ali Mohamad Gedi, has publicly accused the United Nations agency feeding the country of spreading cholera along with food deliveries. And that's the internationally recognized government, which enjoys U.S. support, although it is widely unpopular in southern Somalia and the capital, Mogadishu. That's not surprising, since the prime minister is from a clan that's hostile to the clan that dominates the capital, and the president, Abdulahi Yusuf, is from Puntland, in northern Somalia, a breakaway region that is best known as the homeland of Somalia's pirates, who once again are on the prowl, bedeviling aid shipments even further.

當因毒品而變質腐敗的軍閥在鄉下遊走，對接受援助者強徵50%的稅時，就會發生這種事。當索馬利亞政府總理葛迪，公然指控正在索國捐糧的聯合國機構在分送糧食之際散播霍亂，發生這種事也在意料之中。而這個政府是得到國際承認和美國支持的，但它在索國南部和首都摩加迪休十分不受歡迎。這也是意料中事，因為總理來自和在首都占多數的部族敵對的派系，而總統尤塞夫又來自索國北部的潘特蘭，這是索國幾乎無人不知窩藏海盜的分離地區，他們再度四處出沒，使運送援助品難上加難。

"Is there actually any hope for the future in Somalia" said the World Food Program's Somalia country director, Peter Goossens. "I don't know."

「索馬利亞未來真的還有什麼希望嗎？」世界糧援計畫索國負責人高森斯說：「我不知道。」

Sixteen years after the established government fell in Somalia, the East African nation just lurches from one disaster to another, some man-made, some natural, each one deepening the humanitarian crisis. Last year marked more than six years of a record-breaking drought, followed by renewed infighting between feuding clan warlords. Then the drought ended--only to be replaced by devastating floods, cutting off much of the population from aid deliveries.

在索國政府垮台十六年後，東非這個國家災難接二連三，有些是人為的，有些是自然的，每次都使人道危機加深。去年發生六年多來破紀錄的乾旱，接著又是敵對派系軍頭內鬥。等旱災結束，特大洪澇又來了，切斷大部分人的救濟物資。

"Next it will be a plague of locusts," one aid official said, knocking on wood.

「接下來恐怕會發生蝗災，」一名救援官員敲敲樹木說。

Officials at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs say hundreds of thousands of Somalis are in a perilous condition, and even those refugees who have received food aid often don't have shelter or medical care. In many areas warlords have reasserted their power, aligned to no particular side, taxing aid shipments and demanding half of the aid that individual recipients receive. To make matters worse, there's fear of another cholera epidemic, with 20,000 suspected cholera cases and 700 deaths so far this year in south and central Somalia.

聯合國人道事務協調辦公室官員說，數十萬索國人民處境危急，連那些取得救濟物資的難民也往往沒有棲身之地或醫療照護。在很多地區，軍頭再度掌權，他們不和特定派系結盟，但運來的救濟物資要徵稅，個人拿到的賑濟品也要繳出一半。雪上加霜的，大家擔心爆發另一波霍亂疫情，索國中南部如今已出現20,000起疑似病例，並有700人死亡。

Throughout Middle and Lower Shabele provinces, there are reports of refugees arriving in areas where there's already a severe crisis due to flooding and blocked aid deliveries, and being forced to take refuge under trees—and even being obliged to pay rent for those trees. In the Dibiyada district just outside Mogadishu, a group of people who fled Mogadishu huddled under a large acacia tree on a farmstead, plastic sheets tied to the trunk. "We are eight families living under this tree," said Hani Hussein, 27, a mother of three. "We're neighbors and we wanted to stay together. At night all the men sleep on one side, the children and women on the other." For that privilege, she said they paid the local farmer $3 a family for a month, in advance, $24 in all. Farmer Hundubow Ali Hared laughingly acknowledged it. "People are destroying the grass in our farms that we need to feed our animals," he said, and "they are using our fields as toilets." Under another tree not far away, a midwife, herself a displaced person, delivered a baby to another refugee, with no hot water or medical supplies. In all, an estimated 20,000 families are taking refuge in the Dibiyada district, local aid workers said.

在夏伯瑞省中南部全境，據報難民已抵達因洪澇阻礙援品運送而造成嚴重危機的地區。他們被迫在樹下避難，甚至被迫付「樹租」。在摩加迪休郊外狄比亞達區，一群難民逃離摩加迪休，在一片農地的一株大阿拉伯膠樹下擠成一團，塑膠布綁在樹幹上。「我們總共有八戶人家住在這棵樹下，」27歲的哈妮．胡生是三個孩子的母親，她說 ：「我們是鄰居，我們希望能在一起。晚上男人睡一邊，孩子和女人睡另一邊。」為了這項「特權」，她表示，他們每月付當地農民三美元「樹租」，總共24美元。農民哈瑞德大笑承認。「這些人毀了我們農地上用來餵家畜的草，」他說，何況「他們還在我們田野上方便。」在不遠處，另一棵樹下，一位本身也流離失所的接生婆，幫另一名難民接生，但沒有熱水或醫療用品。當地救援人員說，整體而言，約有兩萬戶人家在狄比亞達區避難。

In aid-worker jargon, the Somalis seem to have developed "extreme coping mechanisms." Whatever nature and man throw at them, they seem for the most part to survive it. However, Somalia could still get worse.

套句救援工作者的話，索國人民似已發展出「極端因應機制」，不管大自然和人類丟給他們什麼，他們似乎總有辦法活下去。 但索國仍可能繼續向下沈淪。（摘譯自新聞周刊）

《詞解》
reduced 淪落
addled 變質腐敗的
breakaway 分離
warlords 軍頭
aligned to 結盟
cholera epidemic 霍亂疫情
acacia tree 阿拉伯膠樹
huddled 擠成一團
midwife 接生婆