The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF has revealed the death of more than 700 children in Somalian nutrition centres with many more in danger as the nation faces a famine.
The Horn of Africa has some of the deepest humanitarian crises in the world with Somalia and Ethiopia affected. The region is on track for a fifth failed rainy season. In 2011, famine and the lack of access to food killed at least 250,000 Somalians with many of them being children.
“Some 730 children have been reported to have died in food and nutrition centres across the country between January and July this year but the numbers could be more as many deaths go unreported,” UNICEF Somalia representative Wafaa Saeed told a Press briefing in Geneva.
The centre was designed to help children battle severe acute malnutrition as well as other problems such as measles, malaria and other endemic and epidemics.
UN has warned that despite improvements in the achievement of its $1.46bn aid for Somalia, the funding has come late and may not meet the target again. The UN has met 68% of its expectations so far.
“We are going to be witnessing the death of children on an unimaginable scale if we don’t act fast,” said Audrey Crawford, Somalia’s country director at the Danish Refugee Council.
Many families are struggling to have their children alive with some of them losing them on their way to the centres.