Children starving to death ‘before our eyes’ say aid workers as G7 leaders warned only ‘massive’ and urgent funding will avert famine
Only a “massive” and immediate scaling-up of funds and humanitarian relief can save Somalia from famine, a UN spokesperson has warned, as aid workers report children starving to death “before our eyes” amid rapidly escalating levels of malnutrition.
In a message to G7 leaders who are meeting from Sunday in Germany, Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional director for east Africa, said governments had to donate urgently and generously if there was to be any hope of avoiding catastrophe in the Horn of Africa country.
“We need money and we need it now,” said Dunford. “Will we able to avert [a famine in Somalia]? Unless there is … a massive scaling-up from right now, it won’t be possible, quite frankly. The only way, at this point, is if there is a massive investment in humanitarian relief, and all the stakeholders, all the partners, come together to try to avert this.”
The Horn of Africa has suffered four consecutive failed rainy seasons and is experiencing its worst drought in four decades, a climate shock exacerbated by ongoing conflict and price rises caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Across the whole of east Africa, 89 million people are now considered “acutely food insecure” by the WFP, a number that has grown by almost 90% in the past year.
“Unfortunately, I do not see [that rate of growth] slowing down. If anything, it seems to be accelerating,” said Dunford.
Last year, the UK and other G7 leaders promised to provide $7bn (£5.7bn) to help countries prevent famine, but appeals for east Africa have not managed to raise enough funds to stave off hunger.
Now those same leaders are being urged to commit to an immediate funding package as Somalia, the worst-affected country, descends into catastrophe. By September, at least 213,000 people in the worst-hit areas are expected to be facing famine, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report.
On a recent visit to the country, Claire Sanford, deputy humanitarian director of Save the Children, said she met mothers who had already buried multiple children in the last year, and whose surviving children were now suffering severe malnutrition. One acutely malnourished three-month-old baby whom Sanford met “never made it through the night, and we heard of a number of stories where that was the case”.
“I can honestly say in my 23 years of responding to humanitarian crisis, this is by far the worst I’ve seen, particularly in terms of the level of impact on children,” she said. “The starvation that my colleagues and I witnessed in Somalia has escalated even faster than we feared.”
A Somali woman who fled drought-stricken areas gives water to her baby in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia Saturday, 4 June 2022. Photograph: Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP
In 2011, Somalia experienced a famine that killed more than 250,000 people, mostly children, but Sanford said many of the people she met said the conditions now were even worse.
“We have genuinely failed as an international community that we have allowed the situation to get to the extent it is at the moment. In 2011, we vowed as a community that we would never, ever let this happen again. And yet we have failed in that promise,” she added.
Dunford said inadequate funding had hampered efforts to learn from the 2011 famine. “We are seeing children dying before our eyes, seeing populations that have lost their livelihoods. It’s not that we didn’t learn the lessons of 2011; there was a lot of very good learning from that crisis. It’s just we haven’t been able to implement it to the extent required because of the lack of funding.”
Mogadishu shops shuttered as soaring food prices add to desperation in Somalia
Read more
In April, the UN had received only 3% of funds for its $6bn appeal for Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.
Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said the current crisis was partly due to the British government’s “compassion failure” and decision to slash the overseas aid budget by £4.6bn last year.
According to the latest IPC assessment for Somalia, an estimated 1.5 million under-fives face acute malnutrition by the end of the year, including 386,400 who are likely to be severely malnourished. Those numbers are only expected to go up.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Usiamo tecnologie come i cookie per memorizzare e/o accedere ad informazioni sul dispositivo. Lo facciamo per migliorare l'esperienza di navigazione e mostrare annunci personalizzati. Fornire il consenso a queste tecnologie ci consente di elaborare dati quali il comportamento durante la navigazione o ID univoche su questo sito. Non fornire o ritirare il consenso potrebbe influire negativamente su alcune funzionalità e funzioni.
Functional
Sempre attivo
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.