Radio ERGO journalist Fatuma Maalim with her award won in the category for reproductive health.

Representing the IMS-supported Radio ERGO, Somali journalist Fatuma Maalim recently won a coveted radio journalist award for her story on maternity health complications in Kenya's Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps

The award, funded by UNICEF and the Kenya Media Network on Population and Development among others, was given to Fatuma Maalim for her awareness-raising radio piece on the dangers of complications arising from cesarean sections.

Maalim works as a journalist for the IMS-supported Radio ERGO, which provides the Somali population with valuable and life-saving information. Reflecting on her award-winning piece, she said:

"It touches the lives of mothers suffering silently in the refugee camps. As an awareness-raising piece, I hope it has made an impact, helping both mothers and doctors to improve the medical services for reproductive health in the camps."

Read Fatuma Maalim's story below.

Somali refugee women are dying from causes directly related to their pregnancies 

The mortality rate of refugee women who die from causes directly related to delivery has prompted women to worry about the dangers of cesarean sections.

In the past few months, women in the Kakuma refugee camp have been complaining that mothers-to-be aren't given the time to deliver naturally in the local hospital.

Instead, the doctors perform a cesarean section, which has resulted in the death of several women. They die from causes directly related to birth complications after bleeding. Either the child is saved or both parent and mother die in such cases.

Mursal Mohamed, the husband of Bahsan who died recently after complications arose from a cesarean section, told of his experiences:

"Bahsan died in an emergency cesarean section after I rushed her to the hospital. After some time they gave her a pubergen injection, and an hour or so later, I was informed that she needed to have a cesarean section to save both her and the child. I allowed it, because I was told it was for the safety of my wife and child, but unfortunately she died of an injury sustained during the cesarean."

The increase in mortality rate and the death of Bahsan, who was the eighth woman to die in a month due to complications arising from a cesarean section, other women are concerned and left with an impression that delivery is not safe for the vast majority of women in the Kakuma camp.

It is not clear for Amina Jama, a pregnant woman, what is going to happen during her labour but her prayers are strong enough.

"I was in panic ever since I heard about women who dies after they had a cesarean section performed. There are several women I knew who died from the same, so I am confused about what to do."

There are several traditional midwives in the camps who continue practicing without a license, causing uncertainty for many mothers, as the government refuses to register children who are not born in a hospital.

Rather than assigning blame on the cesarean section procedure, Khadija Ali whose face is full of fear, explains the challenges of traditional midwives:

"Children who were not born in the hospitals are not registered. They are not given drugs or added to the refugee status papers, so we are facing difficulties on every side."

In the Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya, there are thousands of Somalis who have fled from their homes due to the security threat or the recurrent droughts. There are day-to-day measures in place to help refugees access food and other services including health and education.

IMS supports Radio ERGO through its daughter company IMS Productions ApS with a branch office in Kenya. Playing its role as a key facilitator of humanitarian information to the Somali people and communicating their immense needs to the international aid agencies, Radio Ergo is a unique and crucially important media situated in the midst of one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades.

With a network of professionally trained and highly motivated Somali journalists like Fatuma Maalim, Radio ERGO stands out as a vital component in ensuring that Somalis have access to quality information.