More than 700 children have died in Somalia nutrition centres, U.N. says

GENEVA/MOGADISHU, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Hundreds of children have died in nutrition centers in Somalia, the UN children’s agency (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, a day after the world body warned that parts of the country will be affected by famine in the coming months.

An official from a Somali region described starving people walking long distances with children on their shoulders to escape drought and violence inflicted by Al Shabaab militants. Some children died on the way.

The Horn of Africa region is facing a fifth consecutive unsuccessful rainy season. A 2011 famine in Somalia claimed more than a quarter of a million lives, most of them children. read more

“Some 730 children were reported to have died in food and nutrition centers across the country between January and July this year, but the numbers could be higher as many deaths go unreported,” UNICEF Somalia Representative Wafaa said. Saeed, at a press conference in Geneva.

The centers are for children with severe acute malnutrition and diseases such as measles, cholera or malaria and offer a snapshot of the situation across the country.

Ahmed Shire, information minister for Glamudug state, north of the capital Mogadishu, said 210 people had died of malnutrition in recent months.

“Al Shabaab burned five villages completely, burning even the wells to ashes,” he told Reuters. “These people were fighting the drought that killed half of their animals. Al Shabaab plundered the remaining animals.”

Shire said approximately 1,000 families, each with at least seven children, had fled the area on foot and could not be rescued due to the threat of attacks.

Al Shabaab, an Islamist group linked to Al Qaeda, has been attacking military and civilian targets for more than a decade.

Unicef ​​said disease outbreaks were on the rise among children, with around 13,000 suspected measles cases reported in recent months, of which 78% were children under the age of five.

Faduma Abdiqadir Warsame, who runs nine camps for displaced people on the outskirts of Mogadishu, said his team has buried 115 children and elderly people in the past three months.

“The thousands of families left are just skeletons. If they are not helped immediately, they will follow suit,” he said, adding that most people were too poor to pay for a proper burial.

“Children are buried like garbage in alleys and along walls,” he said.

Financial aid to Somalia has increased recently and the United Nations’ $1.46 billion appeal is now 67% funded. But aid officials warned that more was needed.

“We will see the deaths of children on an unimaginable scale if we don’t act fast,” said Audrey Crawford, country director for Somalia at the Danish Refugee Council.

Information from Emma Farge and Abdi Sheikh; additional writing by Estelle Shirbon; edited by Rachel More, William Maclean and Ed Osmond

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.