For many Mongolian herders, who have now lost all their animals in the weather disaster that has afflicted the country, leaving the barren hillsides to settle in a tiny county town means the end of life as they have known it, according to a report issued by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Families that have lost everything are scattered all around the county. IFRC has launched an emergency appeal for 1 million USD992,000 to assist the people who suffer the most.

As the shocked and numbed herders move to tiny towns of only about 500 households, they know they will face a new and unfamiliar life without their animals. The Mongolian Red Cross Society believes that a proportion of those who begin this internal migration will eventually gravitate to the capital”s ger districts, where they face new and daunting challenges in adapting to an urban way of life.

Visits to a couple of families who moved to one such little town in the past two years after harsh weather claimed all their animals, provided contrasting impressions of their ability to cope. Sitting in their ger, 45-year-old Nyam-Osor and his children seem despondent and weighed down by poverty and hardship. “There”s no way I can find any other work, because I can”t read and write and have no other skills,” he says. But as children darted in and out of 42-year-old Dashdorj”s ger, the atmosphere couldn”t have been more different. “I hope that some of my children will go and get good jobs in the city, although my eldest son really wants to be a herder,” said Dashdorj. He makes a living for the family from doing odd jobs such as helping with cleaning, slaughtering and working on preparing the cashmere which is Mongolian herders” most lucrative product.

His experience seems to show that if herder families who end up in towns are resourceful and willing to try their hand at new things, they can make a go of their lives there. Red Cross Red Crescent assistance will also aim to assist those who have lost their animals in finding new ways of making a living. But there”s no doubt that even so, many migrant families still face formidable challenges ahead.