HARGEYSA, 15 June (IRIN) - Baby orphan Mahad struggles to drink the drops of milk from a pipette, patiently squeezed into his tiny mouth by the nurse. Cradled in her arms, his huge eyes are drowsy with the effort of living. If he survives - and the nurse feels he will - Mahad will face a lifetime of battles. Being without parents and family means he is sentenced to find his way through life without the most crucial source of identity in Somali society and culture: that of clan.

"Clan is everything here. You need clan to marry, to get credit, to get a bank account, to get property, to belong. Without clan, you are a nobody in society," said one of the social workers at the children's home, which is now Mahad's world.

In Somali culture, clan is the inherited patriarchal lineage of ancestors, passed down orally in detail, generation to generation, determining origin, social standing, and access to territory, property and power. In times of trouble, the clan also pays a penalty for inflicting death or injury, which relieves the burden from individuals and families. At its worst, clan leads to conflict, xenophobia and control. "But at its best, the clan works like the western world's social security welfare system. It protects, it means that all actions against you and your family will have consequences," said a Somali source. "Orphans do not have that."

Many of the children in the orphanage in Hargeysa, capital of the self-declared independent state of Somaliland, suffer stress and psychological problems, explains Ibrahim Umar Jur, medical officer and social worker. The orphans find it difficult to fit into society and, once they are teenagers, become increasingly anxious about who they are and whether they will be able to marry or live a normal life. Ibrahim said the children look to the staff for answers that are difficult - or impossible - to give. "We don't answer them directly. We play with them and try and make them feel strong and secure."

Found abandoned outside the Hargeysa Orphanage Centre, Mahad - which means "blessing" - is now about two months old. Some of the abandoned babies are bright, and thrive from the start. Others are tiny, thin - even premature - and die, says the nurse who painstakingly persuades Mahad to feed.

He is one of 355 children who receives care from some 60 fulltime and part-time staff. Found by one of the staff outside the main gate before dawn one morning, tightly swaddled, strict procedures had to be followed before Mahad could be admitted to the home. Abandoned babies are checked out physically on the spot, and any witnesses record a statement. "Next, we take them to the police station, and then on to court," Ibrahim said. The court must issue a letter certifying the baby has no responsible family member before it is taken in by the orphanage.

The next step is to give the baby a name.

"We name orphans in groups, so that they can share a 'family' name like normal children", one of the social workers explained. "Then at least they have brothers and sisters." Mahad has been called Isma'il Muhammad - a randomly selected 'father's' name - along with five other children.

Organising the children for meals in the shaded courtyard, or stepping in to stop fights and squabbles, the staff must grab what time they can to watch over babies and toddlers, who spend most of their day in metal-rodded, mosquito-netted cots. Babies more than a year old lie oddly still, staring quietly at attending staff. "We need more space for the children, more playthings for the babies," said one of the carers. "We need running water and repairs on the buildings," lamented another. "The dormitories need beds, and the children need toys," pleaded another. When a rare visitor arrives, the younger children follow them, holding their arms high, longing to be picked up.

According to the present director, Muhammad Isma'il Abdullahi, of the 355 children at the centre, 285 are real orphans. "We have two types of children here, the poor and the abandoned." Formerly under the Ministry of Justice and the prison service, the centre has just been placed under the Ministry of Education. The ministry provides the running costs, but the centre is clearly short of funds. With some support from the UN World Food Programme and the international NGO Hope World Wide, the orphanage has soldiered on since Somaliland, declared unilateral independence in May 1991. Maize, cooking oil, porridge, and occasional rice and flour, are provided by WFP, and medicine, building repairs, a small playground, and office-support has been provided by other NGOs, including Save the Children-Denmark.

Like other Somali territories, Somaliland, northwest Somalia, has suffered international isolation following the collapse of the central government in 1991 and subsequent civil war. All services and institutions collapsed, including the most basic social and educational structures. Security concerns and donor fatigue in the face of the seemingly endless crisis in Somalia has meant that international humanitarian support has been generally scarce.

As a result, Somali children had been "at the bottom of the pile" in a decade of unparallelled deprivation, lamented one humanitarian worker - "and no-one could be much closer to the bottom than Somali orphans".

There are very few orphans in Somali society. Few children are abandoned, even during the hardest of times. Before the introduction of the modern nation state, the clan structure effectively prevented the very concept of "orphan" - a child would be taken in by relatives. But in the case of a pregnancy without family or clan blessing, child and mother would be unlikely to survive rejection and punishment by the clan, Somali sources said in Somaliland. Even now, for a young Somaliland woman to be discovered pregnant outside marriage would be in most cases "unthinkable". "She would be destroyed, perhaps literally, but certainly emotionally, socially and physically," said one social worker. She may flee across the borders to Djibouti or Ethiopia, or, if from a remote rural area, come to Hargeysa. "Urbanisation, prostitution and drugs are the most common reason now for unwanted pregnancies," said the social worker.

The former regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre developed its own unique way of dealing with the unwanted. Director Muhammad Isma'il Abdullahi said the military regime trained children from the orphanages as soldiers and cadres. "They were not expected to have a civilian life."

Keen though the director is to give those under his care a normal life, the children fight immeasurable battles from an early age. Ibrahim, the social worker at the home, describes how one seven-year old boy became ashamed of his name, which he shared with seven other children, when he started school. His classmates teased him, and told him he was "sharing an orphan name". Teachers from the school alerted the orphanage that the boy had changed his name on the school list. "I met him one day coming from school and I called him, and I asked him to tell me his name," Ibrahim said. Giving the new name, the boy said he had been forced to change the "orphan" name to protect himself from abuse by his classmates: "I have a different name when I walk through these gates." Ibrahim said the orphanage allowed him to keep the new name "because he had enough problems in life".

After 15, Somali children are considered to have reached the age of independence, and are unlikely to be kept in orphanages like Hargeysa. Removing them creates space for the young and defenceless, like Mahad, but leaves the orphaned teenagers without any real support. "This has the effect of removing from school some children who might otherwise have finished their education," pointed out one Somali businessman.

According to the staff, the children usually become increasingly preoccupied with their identity as they grow up. Those who suffer the most serious psychological effects of abandonment and institutionalisation are confused and depressed, and become withdrawn. Some children do not speak to their peers and friends in the orphanage for long periods of time; others become abusive and have social and academic problems at school. "We try to be their family. We avoid answering their problems directly, because it would destroy them," Ibrahim said. The centre concentrates on sports to keep the children active and occupied.

There are success stories, however. Some of the children do well at school, find a job, and some inter-marry from the orphanage. One way or another, a handful will forge a life outside the orphanage.

But only a few are adopted - the very clan structure that the children crave works prohibitively against adoption. Adoption is not a "cultural norm", explains one Somali woman. "If I adopted a baby, people would think, why is she using her resources on that child and not giving to her relatives and clan?"

With its ultra-conservative values, women in Somaliland society are also nervous to brave such a step. "If I adopted, everyone would be suspicious about the baby - where did it come from, whose is it?", said one woman. "I think my husband would leave me."

Interest, however, in the children's home and the fate of the orphans is growing. There are plans by women's groups and humanitarian organisations to increase contact by organising basketball and football matches. And some women are willing to take more risks than others. The director talks of a recent case of an older woman from Awdal Region, near the Ethiopian border, who adopted a baby girl found near the wall of the orphanage. Married but childless, she had come to the centre to look at older girls, but became enchanted with the 50 day-old baby brought in from the cold. Once the court had approved the adoption - which required two witnesses to verify character and financial capability - the baby started her new life. "She was lucky," Ibrahim said. Of Mahad - "maybe he will be lucky too."

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001