Post date: Jul 08, 2011 5:46:58 PM
The U.N. says 2.8 million people in Somalia need emergency aid. In the worst-hit areas, one in three children are suffering from malnutrition.
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (JULY 8,2011) REUTERS - Banaadir hospital is one of the few properly functioning hospitals in the Somali capital Mogadishu.Millions of people in the Horn of Africa are facing famine due to the worst drought in decades, combined with conflict and rising food prices, the World Food Programme (WFP) says.
Malnourished children are brought to the hospital and immediately put on drips. They are later transferred to a ward in the hospital where they are cared for by their relatives.
Doctor Yasmin Shire says these are not residents of Mogadishu, but visitors.
"As you see there are more severe malnutrition children in the hospital these days after a lot of families fled from drought-hit Somali regions, most of them are newly displaced children."
Thousands of people are taking refuge in abandoned buildings in Mogadishu after fleeing areas of central Somalia where ravaging al Shabaab militia and lack of rain over several seasons have seen farms fail to produce any crops.
Somalia is experiencing pre-famine conditions, driving more than 1,000 people over the border into Kenya and Ethiopia each day, according to the United Nations.
Hassan Ali Ilmi was a farmer in the central districts of Somalia, but he fled when crops failed.
"I have been in the hospital with my daughter for a week and she had severe malnutrition when I brought her here but she is rather good. We fled from upper Shebelle after all of our goats and sheep were lost in the drought."
And across the border, in Ethiopia, the situation is the same. Thousands of people are arriving daily here at the Kobe refugee camp in Dolo Ado on the Ethiopia Somali border. Most of them tell the same story - crop failure and dying livestock.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, visited the camp to assess the response needed in the latest crisis.
"I believe that we are witnessing in the Horn of Africa today, especially in Somalia, the most tragic humanitarian disaster. The fact that conflict and drought are combining itself creating a terrible situation for the people that is forced to flee in big numbers. Children dying on the way, children coming to Ethiopia or to Kenya and doctors not even being even able to treat them because of the level of malnutrition that they face."
The new refugees wait in queues to be registered and provided with basic materials to help them settle down.
Marcus Cloe from the charity Doctors Without Borders says there are many cases of severe malnutrition.
"At the moment, these ten working days the programme is running, we have around almost 1,000 severely malnourished."
At the moment there are no international aid agencies are operating in Somalia.
The U.N.'s World Food Programme pulled out of southern Somalia in 2010 because of threats against its staff and demands from Al Shabaab of payments for security.
The world's biggest food agency has also faced challenges from donors after a local WFP contractor was exposed last March as a Somali businessman with links to al Shabaab.
Islamic rebels on Tuesday said they had lifted a ban on humanitarian agencies supplying food aid to millions of Somalis after the worst drought in 60 years hit the Horn of Africa region.
Local analysts in Somalia said that al Shabaab lifted the ban to generate money to fund their war effort. In the past, al Shabaab has told aid agencies to pay a hefty registration fee.
Al Shabaab fighters, who profess loyalty to al Qaeda, control central and southern parts of the war-torn Horn of Africa country. In the past, they have refused to allow aid agencies to distribute food, saying that aid creates dependency.