1.4M children in Somalia to suffer acute malnutrition in 2017, UNICEF says.
ah_fotobox/iStock/Thinkstock(HARASHEF, Somalia) — The number of children in drought-stricken Somalia expected to suffer from acute malnutrition has surged by 50 percent since the beginning of this year, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“The combination of drought, disease, and displacement are deadly for children, and we need to do far more — and faster — to save lives,” Steven Lauwerier, UNICEF’s representative in Somalia, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Of the 1.4 million children who are expected to be affected, more than 275,000 have or will suffer life-threatening severe acute malnutrition in 2017, according to UNICEF.
Severe acute malnutrition is an extreme form of hunger that makes people literally waste away and leaves children especially vulnerable to deadly diseases like cholera, measles and acute watery diarrhea.
Many of the water sources they can access are contaminated, leaving people vulnerable to waterborne diseases.
“They see their whole means of livelihood wiped out,” Susannah Price, chief of communication for UNICEF Somalia, told ABC News.
“They’re the ones who are so weak that if they’re hit by diarrhea or measles or an illness like that, they’re really at risk of dying,” she told ABC News.
Donors have also stepped up to help, hoping to avoid a situation like Somalia’s 2011 famine, in which over 250,000 people died.
As of Tuesday, UNICEF had received $78.7 million of the $148 million it needs, the organization said.