Too Weak To Cry: Famine Looms Over Somalia's Children

Mogadishu, Sept 20 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Sep, 2022 ) :As flies buzz over his tiny body, two-year-old Sadak Ibrahim barely whimpers, too weak to cry or shoo them away -- a heartbreaking glimpse of the hunger crisis gripping Somalia.

The Horn of Africa nation is on the brink of a second famine in just over a decade, enduring its worst drought in 40 years after failed rainy seasons since late 2020 wiped out crops and livestock.

With a fifth monsoon forecast to fail, the United Nations warned this month that time was running out to save lives as it urged donors to contribute more to the relief effort.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said the situation was worse than the 2011 famine when 260,000 people died in the country, more than half of them children under the age of six.

Aid is slowly making its way to Somalia following delays caused by the war in Ukraine, which also sent the cost of transport and emergency supplies soaring.

But many fear the help will arrive too late for the country's youngest victims like Sadak, with around 730 children already reported dead in nutrition centres between January and July this year, according to UNICEF.

At De Martino Hospital in the capital Mogadishu, Sadak's anxious mother Fadumo Daud sat vigil by the toddler's bedside, a feeding tube dangling from his face, as she prayed for a miracle.

"He is the only child I have, and he is very sick as you can see," the young woman told AFP, recounting the three-day journey that brought her to Mogadishu from Baidoa -- one of the epicentres of the crisis.