UN report: 200 children die from malnutrition in Somalia
At least 200 children in Somalia have died from malnutrition since January, as the country experiences catastrophic food insecurity for the first time since 2017.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement posted on its website: “More than 7 million people were affected by drought and food scarcity, up from 6.1 million in May, and more than 805,000 were displaced”.
The international organization reported that its humanitarian partners launched the Drought Response and Famine Prevention Plan, which runs from May to December 2022, to facilitate the expansion of life-saving and sustainable assistance to prevent famine in the country.
The plan requires $993.3 million to implement and targets 6.4 million people, according to the UN.
Since January, 3.9 million people have received life-saving assistance; however, the scale of the ongoing response and funding from the international community is not enough to sustain the lives of all at risk, and the UN has warned that delayed and limited funding is impeding appropriate scaling-up.
Somalia is experiencing one of the worst droughts linked to climate change in four decades, after the fourth consecutive rainy season failed in eight regions of the country, bringing affected families to the brink of famine, according to the UN.
On 17 June, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Adam Abdul Mawla, warned that Somalia was on the verge of widespread and devastating hunger and mass starvation that could claim hundreds of thousands of lives, and stressed the need for immediate action to avoid this.
