Faced with famine, Hassan took his remaining eight children with him and embarked on a 15-day trip to the capital Mogadishu. Towards the end of the journey, her two-year-old daughter collapsed and died. They buried her along the way.
“I cried so much, I passed out,” she said, “But we have so many problems. We have no food or shelter.”
Sitting on a plastic chair in a clinic run by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Mogadishu, Hassan’s face was expressionless from exhaustion as the doctor examined the little girl curled up in his lap.
Her daughter Muslimo is 18 months old but weighs just over 10 pounds. The sedge skin was stretched over her protruding ribs. She didn’t cry. The doctor measured her tiny forearm. The tape shows red color, indicating that the child is severely malnourished.
IRC senior nutrition director Mukhtar Mahdi said the clinic saw an 80% spike in cases in the last month and a staggering 265% increase in severe childhood malnutrition. children under 5 years old.
“We’ve never seen this level in our clinic before. It breaks my heart. That’s why I’m still working in the field, to avert a disaster.”
Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, Save the Children’s country director, says the situation is worse than anything he has seen before.
“Wheat is consumed in Somalia, 92% comes from Russia and Ukraine,” he said. “Wheat prices have doubled in some areas.”
“The war in Ukraine has really aggravated the situation.”
“What is happening in Ukraine is sucking up a lot of oxygen,” explains Lara Fossi, deputy director of the World Food Program. “So bringing attention back to what’s happening here, it’s really hard.”
According to the United Nations, about 7 million people, nearly half of Somalia’s population, do not have enough to eat. An estimated 1.5 million children under the age of 5 are severely malnourished and about 448 have died this year. Aid workers warn that the real number is likely much higher because the deaths of many children here, like those of Hassan, are not recorded.
On the outskirts of the capital, a fierce wind blew through the makeshift tents at the recently established Al Na’im Camp. It was one of many informal settlements that sprang up, and subsequently received limited support from neighboring communities, government and aid groups. The camp’s manager, Zamzam Mohammed, says the camp’s population has mushroomed in the last month, and it is now home to 876 families.
That’s a fraction of the roughly 800,000 people who have been displaced this year because of drought and hunger, according to the UN. The last week of June saw a record 36,000 newcomers to camps across Somalia, UNICEF said. The agency and local partner organizations are working to improve sanitary conditions and distribute aid in Na’im and other camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu, but say they are struggling to keep up.
UNICEF’s Victor Chinyama said the local communities around Mogadishu, known for supporting new arrivals, are currently struggling on their own. “The host communities can’t support the newcomers as they have been, as they would like,” he said.
Camp director Mohammed moved towards the edge of the camp, where she said she oversaw the burial of 30 children. Freshly dug mounds, simply marked with aloe leaves and acacia twigs, are dotted in a straight line.
“From corner to corner, this line of graves are all children… You feel the pain and pain of burying a baby. There’s nothing you can do to help. I’m a mother and I have can feel their pain as a parent,” said Mohammed.
She took a towel to wipe her tears.
“I couldn’t bear to go,” she told CNN. “I will feel grief…”
She stopped and turned her attention to her young daughter sitting beside her.
“She was very sick. I will visit them when she gets better.”
