The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has appealed for 7 million U.S. dollars before the end of March to urgently support 1.4 million children likely to suffer from acute malnutrition in Somalia.
According to UNICEF, the money will be used to procure 104,000 cartons of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) for the treatment of children with severe acute malnutrition and avert deaths.
UNICEF Representative, Angela Kearney said in a statement issued in the Somali capital, Mogadishu that the numbers seen this year are quite high and unless urgent measures are taken, thousands of children are at risk of dying.
Kearney said a potential break in the supplies pipeline could result in a serious shortage of RUTF from June onwards and imperil the lives of more than 100,000 children.
UNICEF said more than 1.4 million children in Somalia, nearly half of the country’s under-five population, are likely to suffer from acute malnutrition due to the ongoing drought that has left 4.1 million people on the brink.
According to the latest Somalia Food Security and Nutrition Assessment, about a quarter of the 1.4 million children will suffer from severe malnutrition this year.
According to the U.N., three consecutive seasons of failed rains combined with ongoing conflicts in many parts of Somalia have left a quarter of the population needing immediate food assistance.
UNICEF warned that without urgent scaling up of assistance, the humanitarian situation among the urban and rural poor and displaced populations is expected to deteriorate further between now and June 2022.
It said the impact on pastoralist communities is especially dire, noting that a critical shortage of water has forced families to migrate to urban and peri-urban centers in search of water for both human and livestock consumption, adding to the 2.9 million people who were already displaced by conflict and climate change.