Approximately 857,000 Somalis require urgent and life-saving assistance and more than 2 million are facing food insecurity as a result of drought, deficient harvests and ongoing conflict in the country, the United Nations warned this week, with children bearing the brunt of the situation.The mother and child clinic at Benadir Hospital in Mogadishu is overflowing with malnourished children, most of whom have been admitted in the last two months, said Doctor Yahya Abdulkadir Shole, head paediatrician at the hospital. "On average, we admit about ten children, most of whom are below the age of five, to the hospital daily due to malnutrition," he told RDC. "Most of the children who are brought to us are from the regions of Benadir, Middle Shabelle, Lower Shabelle and Hiran." "If children do not receive immediate medical care when they become sick, they will not be able to eat food and then they quickly become malnourished," he said. "Also, they become malnourished if they do not have enough food." Although the hospital is doing its best to treat the influx of children, Shole said the need for medical care is beyond the hospital's capacity. "There is medication that was handed over to us by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) [when it left the country in August], but that is almost finished and we have a little bit left," he said. He said a strong collective aid response was needed to prevent the situation from getting worse. "The government, the United Nations and the media should make a substantial effort to create awareness over the existing danger," Shole said. Families in peril Rahima Hilowle Mahadey, 33, lives with five of her children in a four-square-metre hut in Bur Eyle, a camp for displaced people in Mogadishu's Warta Nabada district. Mahadey and her family were displaced three years ago from a rural area of Burhakaba in Bay region after their cattle and goats died in the 2011 drought. While they were traveling to flee the famine, four of her children died of malnutrition. Still grieving from those losses, Mahadey told RDC her 4-year-old daughter died from malnutrition last week and her 2-year-old daughter was recently admitted to Benadir Hospital with severe malnutrition. "I lost five of my children to malnutrition and I am very worried about the state of my remaining five children," she said. Mahadey said no food or medical assistance is available at the camp from the government or aid agencies, and her husband, who works as a labourer, does not earn enough to sustain the family. "Sometimes we go hungry and at other times we cook whatever he gets," she said. Mahadey said she would like to return with her family to Burhakaba so they can restart their lives. "We cannot go back now because we do not have livestock to raise," she said. "However, we would go back if we were given livestock." In addition to malnutrition, displaced people face water and sanitation problems that can lead to diseases. Zeynab Ali Nur, 32, who lives with her husband and five children in Mogadishu's Sarkusta Camp, was displaced from Qoryoley district in Lower Shabelle region three months ago when fighting broke out between al-Shabaab and allied troops. "My five children, my husband and I live in one hut only. We share a toilet with 15 other families who live in the camp with us," she told RDC. Nur said they routinely struggle with water scarcity, and when she has been able to buy water from neighbours, her children have gotten sick from it due to contamination. Repeat of 2011 famine feared Briefing the UN Security Council on Wednesday (June 4th), Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos stressed that "early warnings must trigger early action so that Somalia moves towards and not away from food security". Despite the international community's commitment to avert another humanitarian disaster in Somalia after the 2011 famine claimed approximately 258,000 lives — half of them children — financial support is "especially low this year", she said, adding that only 19% of the $933 million humanitarian appeal is funded. An immediate injection of $60 million for the next three months is needed "to prevent the country from slipping back into a major humanitarian crisis", Amos said. As a result of funding received so far this year, Amos said more than 1 million people had received food and livelihood assistance, almost 100,000 children had been treated for malnutrition, 400,000 had been given access to water and sanitation interventions, 500,000 were receiving basic health services, and a vaccination campaign had contained the 2013 polio outbreak. The United Nations' warnings and appeals for funding began in earnest last month. "The parallels to the pre-famine period in 2010, when the combination of shrinking access, declining funds and a few failed rainy seasons led to a devastating crisis, are very worrying," UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Somalia Philippe Lazzarini said May 9th. UN, Somali government working together "The UN family has a larger presence on the ground in Somalia than at any time in the last 18 years," Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said in a news release Wednesday. "This is tangible evidence of our strong commitment to continue to work alongside Somalis as they build peace and rebuild their country." Nonetheless, Mohamud Sheikh Hassan, head of monitoring and evaluation at the Somali Disaster Management Agency (SDMA), said there has been a lack of information co-ordination on the early famine warnings. "United Nations agencies should share information with SDMA before they make media announcements," he told RDC. "There is a dire humanitarian situation, but the actual number of who needs assistance and where they are located needs to be researched." "That confusion can result from information mismanagement, which was among the lessons we learned from 2011," he said. Hassan said the government has not spared any effort, but it does not have enough money to provide aid on its own. In addition to being stymied by insufficient rains, low agricultural production this season is a direct and ongoing result of the 2011 drought, according to Abdi Adam Foodadde, who served as director general of Somalia's Ministry of Labour from 2006 to 2011. He said most of the people displaced from their farms three years ago have not returned. "The people who would have produced [food] are the internally displaced who are living in camps," he told RDC, adding that with assistance they could have returned and began producing after the drought. Foodadde also said areas under al-Shabaab control must be liberated. "If the land is freed and the people are assisted in their regions, the famine can be prevented," he said. Tips: -In Areas to discuss the drought there. – To help with a serious of people displaced by drought. – To make nutrition for young children. – Maternal nutrition awareness in children.
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