Severe drought risks pushing nearly half of Somali children under five into acute malnutrition this year, with hundreds of thousands needing life-saving treatment, according to the United Nations.
“Malnutrition has reached crisis levels,” Victor Chinyama, head of communications for the UN children’s agency UNICEF’s Somalia operations, said. “The time to act is now if you wait until things get worse, or until famine is declared, it may be too late.”
Chinyama said children were paying the highest price in the hunger crisis, with 1.4 million of them, or nearly half of all those under the age of five, expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year.
“Of these, 330,000 will need treatment for severe acute malnutrition,” which can lead to death, he said.
The Horn of Africa region grapples with its worst drought in decades.
Somalia has been hardest hit, with the UN warning that 4.1 million people – a quarter of the Somali population – need urgent food aid.
The drought is also spurring a migration crisis. Around 500,000 people have left their homes in search of food, water and pasture since November, adding to the 2.9 million who were already displaced inside the country.
UN: Hunger crisis threatens half of Somalia’s young children | News | Al Jazeera
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