Drought, hunger push Somalis to flee amid fears of famine
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Her eyes glued to the feeble movements of her malnourished baby with protruding ribs and sunken eyes, Fadumo Abdi Ibrahim struggled to hold back her tears in the stifling and crowded feeding centre in Somalia’s capital. She waved a scrap of fabric over him to create a current of air.
She is one of thousands of desperate people streaming into Somalia’s capital seeking food as a result a prolonged drought, overwhelming local and international aid agencies. The Somali government warns of a looming famine.
An estimated 5 million Somalis, out of population of 10 million, need humanitarian assistance, according to the U.N. humanitarian office. About 363,000 acutely malnourished children “need urgent treatment and nutrition support, including 71,000 who are severely malnourished,” said the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
Ibrahim carried her 9-month-old boy, Ali Hassan, to Mogadishu 10 days ago. A mother of five, she is a proud farmer who grew maize (corn) on her family’s farm in Toratorow, an agricultural town in Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region, before rainy seasons failed three times over a two-year period.