‘Worst I’ve ever seen’: Famine looms in Horn of Africa after record drought

Hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of starvation amid a record drought in Africa, with experts warning widespread famine is looming.

Sahro Mohamed Mumin, 30, looks at her son Abdulrahman Mahamud, 2, who was diagnosed with pneumonia and severe malnutrition, at a government run health clinic on February 25, 2017 in Shada, Somalia. Picture: Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images

A United Nations spokesman and humanitarian workers have warned malnutrition in Somalia is claiming more lives than ever, calling for immediate intervention from international powers.

In a message to G7 leaders, the World Food Programme’s regional director for East Africa, Michael Dunford, said western governments must donate to help countless children dying in their mothers’ arms.

Aid workers on the ground are overwhelmed as villagers are forced to uproot their lives and flee their homes after poor rainfall destroyed crops and killed livestock.

When the rains failed for a fourth consecutive season last month, UN aid agencies and meteorologists warned that a famine was looming in not just Somalia, but in Kenya and Ethiopia as well.

“We need money and we need it now,” Mr Dunford said.

“Will we able to avert [widespread 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.

“Unfortunately, I do not see it slowing down. If anything, it seems to be accelerating.”

Some 7.1 million Somalis — nearly half the population — are battling hunger, with more than 200,000 on the brink of starvation, the UN said last week.

Claire Sanford, deputy humanitarian director of Save the Children, said she met devastated mothers on a recent visit to the country.

“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.”

Experts warn famine is looming in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

In 2011, 260,000 Somalis died of famine. Picture: Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images

For many Somalis like Arbay Mahad Qasim, who has been surviving on government handouts for the past few months, catastrophe has already struck.

Two of her children died of hunger in the last 18 months, and she fears she could lose a third as her malnourished toddler Ifrah awaits treatment in a Mogadishu hospital.

Barely out of her teens, Qasim is among dozens of weary parents crowding Banadir Maternity & Children Hospital, which has become ground zero for the starvation crisis sweeping across Somalia as a record drought grips the Horn of Africa.

When two-year-old Ifrah’s tiny body began to swell, showing symptoms of severe malnutrition, Qasim wasted no time, spending a day travelling to Mogadishu from her village in the southwest in a desperate bid to save her youngest child’s life.

The Banadir facility is packed with parents fearing the worst for their children.

Some have walked for days to find help, carrying their sick, skeletal toddlers on their backs.

Many told AFP they had never endured a crisis of such terrifying magnitude, echoing the warnings of climate scientists who say the unprecedented drought is the worst seen in four decades.

“The crops failed. We lost the livestock. The river dried up,” said Khadija Mohamed Hassan, whose 14-month-old son Bilal is among those admitted to the Banadir facility.

“I am 45 years old and I have never seen such a devastating drought ever in my life. We are living in the worst conditions of our time.”

Some 7.1 million Somalis – nearly half the population – are battling hunger.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has urged Somalis to help their fellow citizens.

Health workers are already overwhelmed, with doctor Hafsa Mohamed Hassan telling AFP that the number of patients arriving at Banadir’s stabilisation centre for malnutrition had trebled since the drought began, leading to a shortage of beds on some days.

“The cases we are receiving include children with other health complications like acute measles and others who are in a coma due to severe malnutrition,” she said.

The situation is at a tipping point, said Bishar Osman Hussein of the non-profit organisation Concern Worldwide, which has been supporting the Banadir centre since 2017.

“Between January and June this year, the number of children admitted at the Banadir Hospital stabilisation centre with severe malnutrition and other complications has increased from 120 to 230 per month,” he told AFP.

Conflict-wracked Somalia is particularly ill-equipped to cope with the crisis, with a grinding Islamist insurgency limiting humanitarian access to parts of the country.

Meanwhile appeals for aid have largely gone unnoticed, with agencies raising less than 20 per cent of the funds needed to prevent a repeat of the 2011 famine that killed 260,000 people — half of them children under the age of six.

“We cannot wait for a declaration of famine to act,” El-Khidir Daloum, the World Food Programme’s country director in Somalia, said in a statement Monday, warning of a race against time.

As humanitarian aid falls short, Somalia’s newly elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has urged Somalis to help their fellow citizens.

“Anyone with a plate of food in their table today must think about the child who is crying somewhere because of hunger and help them in any way possible,” he said during a recent visit to a camp housing drought-displaced communities.

Back at Banadir hospital, Khadija Mohamed Hassan anxiously keeps vigil over little Bilal, his bony body a mess of tubes and bandages.

“We have been here for 13 days, and he looks better now,” she said.