Somalia: Malnutrition killing hundreds of children, UN says

Some 730 children have died in nutrition centers around Somalia already this year, the United Nation's children's agency UNICEF said on Tuesday.

Nutrition centers help children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

The announcement comes a day after the UN warned of a coming famine in the Horn of Africa. The region is facing its fifth consecutive failed rainy season.

"Malnutrition has reached an unprecedented level," UNICEF's Somalia representative Wafaa Saeed said.

Children particularly vulnerable to famine

Saeed said that between January and July this year, "around 730 children are reported to have died in nutrition centers across the country."

She was speaking to reporters in Geneva via a video-link from Mogadishu.

"This is less than one percent of the children who were admitted, cured and discharged. But we also feel that this number could be more, as many deaths of children go unreported."

The prices aid groups pay for emergency water supplies have also increased by between 55% and 85% since the beginning of the year, UNICEF said. Officials said that violence enacted by the Islamist group al-Shabab is also partly to blame.

According to the UNICEF official, some 1.5 million children are at risk of acute malnutrition. Around half of those are younger than five-years-old.

She added that 385,000 children may need to be treated for severe acute malnutrition.

'We cannot wait to act' WFP tells DW

DW spoke with Petroc Wilton from the UN's World Food Program (WFP) following his trip to the country.

Wilton warned that the famine is "going to affect the most vulnerable first. And that is young children. It is the elderly. It is those living with disabilities. It is those who have been internally displaced by conflict."

"We cannot wait for a declaration of famine to act," the WFP official said, adding that "In 2011, the last major famine in Somalia that claimed more than a quarter of a million lives, half of the people who passed away had died before the official declaration."

"This is an unusually severe drought, but Somalia is very prone to droughts, to floods, to tropical storms, they keep happening," Wilton told DW.

Drought driving Somalia into a crisis

Somalia is on the brink of its second famine in just over a decade thanks to a drought a soaring global food prices.

Saeed explained on Tuesday that the drought had caused a water and sanitation crisis due to dried up water sources.

"Many of those have also dried out because of overuse, and we have around 4.5 million people who need emergency water supplies," she said.

"No matter how much food a malnourished child eats, if he or she doesn't get clean water then they won't be able to recover," said Saeed.

She also warned of the dangers of outbreaks of disease among children suffering from acute malnutrition.

The UN has called on world leaders to respond to the crisis before it is too late and to avoid a repeat of the deadly famine that hit the region in 2011.

UN agencies have warned that around half of Somalia's population is facing crisis hunger levels and that people living in Kenya and Ethiopia will also be affected.

ab/msh (Reuters, AFP)