{"id":10225,"date":"2022-05-26T06:58:28","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T06:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/?p=10225"},"modified":"2022-05-26T09:10:41","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T09:10:41","slug":"as-hunger-spreads-in-parts-of-somalia-babies-start-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/2022\/05\/26\/as-hunger-spreads-in-parts-of-somalia-babies-start-to-die\/","title":{"rendered":"As hunger spreads in parts of Somalia, babies start to die"},"content":{"rendered":"

DOLLOW —<\/strong> Hacked-off thorn branches encircle two mounds of earth heaped over the tiny bodies of Halima Hassan Abdullahi\u2019s twin granddaughters. Babies Ebla and Abdia lived only a day.<\/p>\n

Weakened by hunger, their mother gave birth to the twins a month early, eight weeks after their exhausted family walked into a camp for displaced families in the Somali town of Dollow.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is malnourished and her two babies died of hunger,\u201d Abdullahi said at the Kaxareey camp which sprang up in January and now houses 13,000 people.<\/p>\n

They are among more than 6 million Somalis who need aid to survive.<\/p>\n

After rains failed for four consecutive seasons, the worst drought in 40 years has shriveled their beans and maize and dotted scrubland with the corpses of their goats and donkeys.<\/p>\n

With global focus on Ukraine, aid agencies and the United Nations are desperate to attract attention to a calamity they say is shaping up to be comparable to Somalia\u2019s 2011 famine. More than a quarter of a million people died then, mostly children under five.<\/p>\n

There is only enough cash for about half the people in the Kaxareey camp. Abdullahi\u2019s family is not one of the lucky ones.<\/p>\n

She has not seen anything like it since the early 1990s, when a famine helped trigger a disastrous U.S. military intervention in Somalia that ended notoriously with the shooting down of a Black Hawk helicopter. Her family had never had to leave their land before, she said.<\/p>\n

On good days, Abdullahi can support the 13 members of her family by washing clothes in town, earning about $1.50. That enables everyone to have a single handful of maize porridge.<\/p>\n

But it is not enough. Her daughter-in-law needs medicine for typhoid that costs ten times Abdullahi\u2019s daily wages. The girl lies listlessly on a blanket, a skinny baby fretting at her breast. A high-heeled red shoe with a diamante clasp lies in the dirt nearby, one of the few possessions she carried from their sunblasted home. Now she is too weak to even say her name.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbdiya,\u201d Abdullahi says quietly, trying to rouse her.<\/p>\n

The girl does not look up.<\/p>\n

\u2018SO MUCH PAIN\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early intervention is crucial to staving off famine looming over six areas of Somalia, which is home to around 15 million people in a region highly vulnerable to climate change impacts.<\/p>\n

Getting food out fast meant that a drought in 2017 \u2013 worse than the one that caused the 2011 famine \u2013 cost under 1,000 lives.<\/p>\n

But speed requires cash. And it is in short supply.<\/p>\n

The U.N. plan to provide emergency aid is only 15% funded.<\/p>\n

So far, 2.8 million people have received aid. Another 3.1 million could be helped if more money came in.<\/p>\n

The rest are out of reach, residing in parched hinterlands where an Islamist insurgency holds sway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need the cash to avert the risk of famine,\u201d said Rukia Yacoub, deputy director for the World Food Programme in East Africa.<\/p>\n

In the camp, people make homes from orange tarpaulins and scraps of cloth and plastic stretched over domes of sticks.<\/p>\n

Hammering echoes as relief workers set up pit latrines with corrugated iron sheets. New arrivals cluster around tents where aid staff tell them there is no help for now.<\/p>\n

Instead, many families end up begging a cup of food or a few pennies from those barely better off, but who arrived early enough to register for help.<\/p>\n

Hunger often weakens the children before diseases claim them. Asha Ali Osman, 25, lost her three-year-old and four-year-old to measles a month ago.<\/p>\n

Now she cradles her youngest, a baby, as she waits to secure the girl a vaccination in Dollow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel so much pain because I cannot even breastfeed her,\u201d she said softly. \u201cWhen my children are hungry, I can beg some sugar water from a neighbor. Or sometimes we just lie down together, and cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: Reuters\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Origin: View original<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DOLLOW — Hacked-off thorn branches encircle two mounds of earth heaped over the tiny bodies of Halima Hassan Abdullahi\u2019s twin granddaughters. Babies Ebla and Abdia lived only a day. Weakened by hunger, their mother gave birth to the twins a month early, eight weeks after their exhausted family walked into a camp for displaced families …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-environment-and-disasters","category-food-security-cluster","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t