<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up to 1.5 million children in Somalia \u2013 or one in five – could face deadly forms of malnutrition by October without immediate action, Save the Children said today as the international community issued a final warning about the country being on the brink of famine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A new UN statement released on Monday said agricultural communities and displaced people in three areas of the Bay region of southwest Somalia, including Baidoa and Burhakaba districts, could face famine between October and December without significant humanitarian assistance reaching those most in need as Somalia faces its worst drought in 40 years. The UN projected up to 1.5 million children could be facing severe acute malnutrition by October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Save the Children – along with other NGOs and UN agencies – has been alerting donors and governments to the worsening crisis in the Horn of Africa for more than a year, with Somalia crippled by four consecutive failed rainy seasons and forecasts poor for October-December rains. A failed fifth rainy season would be unprecedented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The projection of famine in the Bay region – where thousands of lives were lost in the last famine in Somalia in 2011 that claimed 260,000 lives, half aged under 5 – is based largely on currently available information that minimal assistance will be distributed in those areas in November and December due to funding constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For months, Save the Children has warned of hospitals being overwhelmed by a surge on severely malnourished children with beds full and wards at breaking point as drought in East Africa decimates people\u2019s ability to raise livestock or grow crops and the war in Ukraine drives up food prices, making staples unaffordable for many dependent on imported grain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early warning alerts were initially largely overlooked although a rapid scale-up of humanitarian assistance since the start of 2022 has undoubtedly saved many lives. But these activities have nowhere near reached the scale needed and US$1.5 billion<\/a> is needed to give vulnerable children and their families the food, healthcare, education and water they need to survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Up to 1.5 million children in Somalia \u2013 or one in five – could face deadly forms of malnutrition by October without immediate action, Save the Children said today as the international community issued a final warning about the country being on the brink of famine. A new UN statement released on Monday said agricultural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":931,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}