{"id":7559,"date":"2021-03-03T22:34:18","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T22:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/?p=7559"},"modified":"2021-03-05T13:37:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T13:37:47","slug":"somalia-families-eating-once-a-day-amid-virus-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/2021\/03\/03\/somalia-families-eating-once-a-day-amid-virus-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Somalia: ‘Families eating once a day amid virus crisis’"},"content":{"rendered":"

MOGADISHU —\u00a0 <\/strong>The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened food scarcity in Somalia to the point that many families are only eating once a day, a UN agency said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy August, nearly 850,000 children under 5 are expected to be acutely malnourished,\u201d the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) said on Twitter, citing a report by the Disasters Emergency Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany families could eat only once a day because of the scarcity of foodstuffs resulting from the economic hardship caused by the pandemic\u2026 This is likely to lead to a deterioration in their health with an increase in cases of malnutrition,\u201d the report warned.<\/p>\n

Chronic insecurity linked to the rise of the al-Shabaab terror group in the mid-2000s and recurrent natural disasters have resulted in Somalia being consistently ranked as one of the most fragile states in the world, it added.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Somali government and the UN launched a drive to raise over $1 billion to assist Somali people in need of humanitarian assistance this year.<\/p>\n

The 2021 Humanitarian Response Plan aims to assist 4 million people out of the 5.9 million in need of assistance, including internally displaced persons, host communities, refugees, and returnees.<\/p>\n

Somalia has seen a deadly second wave of coronavirus infections in 2021, with the country\u2019s overall count now over 7,500, including 249 deaths.<\/p>\n

The country faces a huge challenge in terms of testing capacity, with cases \u201chighly, highly underestimated,\u201d according to Cindy Issac, deputy head of UN OCHA in Somalia.<\/p>\n

The government announced new restrictions on Tuesday, banning public gatherings for one month and closing educational institutes and football stadiums for at least two weeks.<\/p>\n

Source: Anadolu Agency\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Origin: \u00a0View original<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOGADISHU —\u00a0 The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened food scarcity in Somalia to the point that many families are only eating once a day, a UN agency said on Wednesday. \u201cBy August, nearly 850,000 children under 5 are expected to be acutely malnourished,\u201d the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) said on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-food-security-cluster","category-health-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