MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – No mother should lose her child. Owliyo Hassan Salaad has watched four die this year. A drought in the Horn of Africa took them one by one.
Now she is pressing her fragile and screaming 3-year-old Ali Osman, whom she took on a 90-kilometer (55-mile) walk from her village to the Somali capital, desperate not to lose him. Sitting on the floor of a malnutrition treatment center full of anxious mothers, she can barely speak of small bodies buried at home in soil too dry to plant.
The deaths began in the region’s driest drought in four decades. Unreported data shared with the Associated Press show at least 448 deaths this year at malnutrition centers in Somalia alone. Authorities in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are now moving towards the grim task of trying to prevent famine.
Many more people are dying beyond the notice of the authorities, such as Salaad’s four children, all under the age of 10. Some die in remote pastoral communities. Some die during hikes in search of help. Some die even after reaching resettlement camps, malnourished without help.
“Definitely thousands” have died, UN coordinator for Somalia Adam Abdelmullah told reporters, although data to support this is yet to come.
Salaad left behind four more children with her husband. They were too weak to go to Mogadishu, she said.
Drought comes and goes in the Horn of Africa, but it’s something like no other. Humanitarian aid has been reduced by global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and now Russia’s war in Ukraine. Prices of basic products such as wheat and oil are rising rapidly, in places by more than 100%. Millions of livestock that provide families with milk, meat and wealth have died. Even therapeutic food to treat hungry people like Salaad’s son is becoming more expensive and may run out in some places.
And for the first time in a row, the fifth rainy season may fail.
An “explosion of child deaths” is coming to the Horn of Africa if the world focuses only on the war in Ukraine and does not act now, UNICEF said on Tuesday.
Famine is even threatening the Somali capital as resettlement camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu swell with exhausted newcomers. Salaad and her son were discharged from a crowded hospital after arriving a week ago.
Instead, they were sent to an extremely malnourished treatment center, where the rooms were full, extra beds were placed, and some people still had to sleep on the floor. Mothers tremble and babies weep, while small bodies with wounds and protruding ribs are carefully checked for signs of recovery.
“The center is overcrowded,” said Dr. Mustaf Yusuf, a doctor there. Admission more than doubled in May to 122 patients.
At least 30 people have died by April this year at the center and six other facilities run by Action Against Hunger, the humanitarian group said. It has noted the highest levels of admission to its hunger treatment centers since starting work in Somalia in 1992, with the number of severely malnourished children rising by 55% from last year.
In general, at least 448 people have died this year in outpatient and inpatient malnutrition centers in Somalia by April, according to data collected by humanitarian groups and local authorities.
Humanitarian workers warn that the figures are incomplete and the total number of deaths from drought remains elusive.
“We know from experience that mortality rises suddenly when all the conditions are there – resettlement, disease outbreaks, malnutrition – all that we are currently seeing in Somalia,” said Biram Ndiaye, UNICEF’s head of nutrition in Somalia.
Mortality studies conducted in parts of Somalia in December and again in April and May by the UN Department of Food Security and Nutrition analyzed showed “serious and rapid deterioration in a very short period of time”. Most worrying was the Gulf region in the south, where adult mortality has almost tripled, infant mortality has more than doubled, and the worst malnutrition rate has tripled.
Deaths and acute malnutrition have reached “atypically high levels” in much of southern and central Somalia, and the intake of severely malnourished children under the age of 5 has increased by more than 40% compared to the same period last year, according to the network. for early warning of hunger.
One notable complication in the death count is the extremist group al-Shabab, whose control over large parts of southern and central Somalia is an obstacle to aid. Her harsh response to the drought-induced famine in Somalia in 2010-12 was a factor in more than a quarter of a million deaths, half of them children.
Another factor was the slow response of the international community. “A drama without witnesses,” the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia said at the time.
Now the alarms are ringing again.
More than 200,000 people in Somalia are facing “catastrophic famine and famine, a drastic increase from the forecast of 81,000 in April”, a joint statement from UN agencies said on Monday, noting that this year’s humanitarian response plan is funded by only 18%.
Somalia is not alone. In the drought-stricken regions of Ethiopia, the number of children treated for the most serious malnutrition – the “peak of the crisis” – jumped 27% in the first quarter of this year compared to last year, according to UNICEF. The increase is 71% in Kenya, where Doctors Without Borders reported at least 11 deaths as part of a county’s malnutrition treatment program earlier this year.
In one of the crowded resettlement camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu, newcomers were tortured as they described watching family members die.
“I left some of my children to take care of the suffering,” said Amina Abdi Hassan, who came from a village in southern Somalia with her malnourished baby. They are still hungry as aid has been exhausted, even in the capital.
“Many others are on the way,” she said.
Hawa Abdi Osman said she lost children due to the drought. Weakened and weakened by another pregnancy, she walks five days to Mogadishu.
“We had to leave some of our relatives and others died while we were watching,” said her cousin Halima Ali Dubou.
More and more people come to the camp every day, using the last bits of energy to create makeshift shelters in the dust, tying branches with fabric and plastic. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, some took up to 19 days to reach the capital.
“Last night alone, 120 families came in,” said camp manager Nadif Hussein. “We give them all the little supplies we have, like bread. The number of people is so huge that helping them is beyond our means. In the past, aid agencies helped, but now aid is very scarce.
“Only God can help them,” she said.
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Kara Anna reported from Nairobi, Kenya. Edith M. Lederer of the United Nations contributed to this report.
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