Somalia Updates: Looming Famine
Somalia is facing a huge famine crisis soon; that is according to Save the Children. It is estimated that the impending famine is likely to be more destructive than the 2011 famine that leads to loss of more than 260,000 lives.
12 million Somali citizens are likely to be affected, and more than 50, 000 children are facing death soon. What is even more saddening is that there is a huge exit of most of the donors, and the so the region risk getting forgotten. And everyone will suffer – children, women and men alike. Women support organizations have become dysfunctional owing to the fact that most of the donors and funders left the region – and so, you expect women to suffer the most.
The UN has also officially declared famine several parts of South Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, and Somalia. Of all these, Somalia seems to be facing a more severe food crisis than the other three.
In fact, Save the Children, has gone ahead to shade more light on this and even suggested circumstances could be even more destructive than reported in most quarters. You see, the food crisis in developing nations are easy to overlook, and the results are extremely dire when it comes to delayed attention.
“What you see on the ground is suggestive of the fact that we are at the tipping point – significantly worsening malnutrition cases says it all, and that famine isn’t far off we imagine”, that is according to the director of Save the Children, Hassan Saadi Noor. Good news is that there are great chances to salvage the situations now, and now than ever. If aid organizations come to play now, there are great windows to salvage the situation. There are great prospects of averting this disastrous humanitarian crisis.
Somalia has been categorized in category one emergency by Save the Children organization, considering that it is a war-torn country as well as the number of people that are in danger there. Workers at Save the Children clinics and healthcare services in Puntland, one of the hardest hit areas in Somalia has reported significant malnutrition in areas coming through their doors. An estimated 363,000 children have already suffered malnutrition with 71,000 having been diagnosed with severe malnutrition. Aft that is not all, Somalia Nutrition Cluster has foreseen that the number of malnutrition cases is more likely to increase to 944,000 cases, with 185,000 severe cases in 2019. Urgent aid must be recommended very fast enough harshly drought-stricken country. The United Nations recently warned that more than 50,000 children are likely to face death.
Real food shortage is looming – coupled with water supplies, and if nothing something has to be done, it should be now.