Save the Children Association announced on Wednesday that Somalia faces the risk of expected famine within a few weeks, warning from a wide food crisis in the Horn of Africa “far worse” than the 2011 famine that killed 260,000 people, with 12 million people, including 50,000 children, in the area likely to be affected.
The Horn of Africa faces lacks decline of supplies, who are pulled in too many different directions.
The warning comes after the UN declared an official famine in parts of South Sudan on Monday, and follows a report earlier this month suggesting that four African countries – South Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia – could be heading towards severe food insecurity later this year.
But Save the Children has suggested the situation in the Horn of Africa is even worse than earlier reports indicated, and fear crises elsewhere mean the developing catastrophe could be overlooked until it is too late.
“What we’re seeing on the ground suggests we’re at a tipping point – a significant worsening of malnutrition cases tells us a famine isn't far off,” said Hassan Saadi Noor, Save the Children’s country director in Somalia.
Aid organizations have a “tiny window” in which to intervene "to divert a really disastrous humanitarian crisis”, Tom Arup, a member of staff deployed to the country told The Independent.
In the Puntland village of Yaka, Iftin Yusuf Mohamed, a nurse working at the local maternal and child health clinic, told Save the Children the situation was getting worse every day.She added that a massive influx of people into the region looking for greener pasture had led to high levels of malnutrition and hunger, and the assistance available was not enough to keep up with the need.“There is a real shortage of food, medication and of water supplies, and if we don’t get it now then it could be a human tragedy with high mortality rates,” she said.
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