BY LATE JUNE AND EARLY JULY, when their goats were all gone and the last of their cows sank to their knees and died, the men told their families it was time to leave. In Daynunay, Haji Hassan and his children packed up what they had—a few rags, plastic bottles, some old cooking pots—and set out for Mogadishu, 155 miles to the east. At every village they passed, their small group grew, first to a column of hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, as millions across southern Somalia abandoned their homes. With little water and only leaves to eat, the young and the old quickly perished: one of Hassan's grandsons was buried where he dropped. Bagey Ali, 50, who walked 185 miles from Qansax Dheere, says he saw seven people "just sit down and die." When his children would start fading on the 310-mile trek from Baoli, Bishar Abdi Shaith, 60, carried them on his shoulders. "When I realized they were dead, I would lift them off and bury them there, on the way." He lost two boys and three girls that way.
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