‘I didn’t have the strength to bury my starving daughter’

Increasing numbers of young children are dying in Somalia, which has suffered the worst drought in 40 years. Government officials say an even worse disaster could hit the country within days or weeks unless more help arrives.

Tears run down the hungry cheeks of 11-year-old Dahir.

“I just want to get rid of it,” he said calmly.

Sitting next to the family’s cottage on the dusty plain outside the town of Baidoa, her tired mother, Fatuma Omar, tells her not to cry.

“Your tears won’t bring your brother back. Everything will be fine,” she says.

Fatuma’s second son, Salat, aged 10, died of starvation two weeks ago, shortly after the family arrived in Baidoa, their village, a three-day walk away.

His body was buried in the rocky ground a few meters from his new home – the tomb was already filled with rubbish and is becoming increasingly difficult to spot as newcomers set up camp around them.

“I can’t cry for my son. , gave a harsh cough as at the age of six.

Across the dirt road to the southeast, the coast, and the Somali capital Mogadishu, other displaced families told darker stories about long walks across dry land in search of food.

‘I can’t bury my daughter’

New research has shown that nearly two-thirds of children and pregnant women in the camps suffer from acute malnutrition, with high mortality rates suggesting that a local declaration of hunger is long overdue.

“I saw my daughter [Farhir, de três anos] She died before me and there was nothing I could do,” says Fatuma, who walked at least 15 days to reach Baidoa with her nine children from a village called Buulo Ciir.

“I’ve been carrying it for 10 days. We had to leave it by the roadside. We didn’t have the strength to bury it. We could hear the approaching hyenas,” he adds.

Holding a piece of string in her hand, 50-year-old Habiba Mohamud complains, “I didn’t bring anything with me. There was nothing left in the house. The cattle died. The fields are dry.” return to your village.

A series of droughts fueled by climate change now threatens to end the centuries-old pastoral way of life in the Horn of Africa.

Like other newcomers, Habiba was busy building a hut for her family out of twigs, pieces of cardboard and plastic, hoping to finish it before the cold night. Only after that was she able to seek food and medical attention for some of her five children.

In the ward of the city’s main hospital, Dr. Abdullahi Yussuf wanders between the beds, checking on his tiny, frail patients. Children between the ages of two months and three are in the majority.

All are severely malnourished. Some had pneumonia, and many were battling a new measles outbreak.

Few children have the strength to cry. The skin of many of them is severely damaged, sometimes broken by the swelling that accompanies the most extreme cases of starvation.

“Many die before they get to the hospital,” Abdullahi says as he watches his team try to attach an IV tube to the arm of a groaning two-year-old.

‘Terrible, people are dying’

Although Somali authorities and international organizations have warned of impending famine in this southwestern region for months, Abdullahi said his hospital is already short of essentials, including nutritional supplements for children.

“Sometimes we can’t find supplies. It’s actually scary because people are dying and we can’t help them. Our local government isn’t managing it well. It doesn’t plan how to mitigate the drought or deal with the arrival of displaced families,” he says with visibly disappointed.

A local government minister acknowledged that there were flaws.

“We need to be faster than we are and be more accurate and more effective,” said Nasir Arush, the Southwest state’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, during a brief visit to one of the camps around Baidoa. But he insists that more international support is critical.

“Hundreds of thousands of people will die if we don’t get the help we need. We should have done what we’re doing now three months ago. We’re actually behind schedule. If nothing happens.” [rápido] “I think something catastrophic is going to happen in this region,” he said.

The official hunger declaration process can be complex due to hard-to-identify data and often political considerations.

Kate Foster, the British Ambassador to Somalia, describes this statement as an “essentially technical process”. He points out that “half of the 260,000 deaths occurred before famine was declared” during the 2011 drought.

The presidential envoy, who is spearheading Somalia’s international efforts to secure more funding, said it “give us hope”, especially thanking the US government for the recent new funding.

But Abdirahman Abdishakur warns that without further assistance, a crisis in one part of Somalia could quickly spiral out of control.

“We were raising the alarm… but the response from the international community was not enough,” says Abdishakur.

“Hunger is predicted. It happens [já] In some places in Somalia, in some pockets, we can still avoid a disaster,” he adds, speaking on the phone during a stopover in Toronto, Canada.

Women run, men lag behind

Although estimates vary, Baidoa’s population has nearly quadrupled in recent months to around 800,000 people.

And any visitor will immediately notice a striking fact: Almost all newly arrived adult adults are women.

Somalia is at war. The conflict has continued in different forms since the central government collapsed three decades ago and continues to affect nearly every part of the country, with men leaving their families to fight for a number of armed groups.

Like many of those who came to Baidoa, Hadija Abukar recently fled the area controlled by the militant Islamist group Al-Shabaab.

“Even now I get calls on my phone from the rest of my family. There are clashes between the government and al-Shabab there. My relatives have fled and are hiding in the forest,” he says. Sick son in a small hospital in Baidoa.

Other women speak of aged husbands and children who were prevented from leaving areas controlled by the militants, and places the group had usurped for years.

Baidoa itself is not completely surrounded by Al-Shabaab, but it still remains a dangerous place of refuge. International charities and foreign journalists need a lot of security to get around, and any travel beyond city limits is considered extremely risky.

“We’re looking at populations under siege. Sometimes we feel hopeless,” says Charles Nzuki, chief of UNICEF, the UN’s arm for children in central and southern Somalia.

By some estimates, more than half of the current drought-affected population lives in areas controlled by Al-Shabaab. Strict US government rules that prevent any aid from being sent to areas controlled by designated terrorist groups are making it difficult to reach many desperate communities.

But international organizations and Somali authorities are working with smaller local partners to increase access and are now planning airdrops in some disputed areas.

Still, speaking in secrecy, one aid worker admits it’s nearly impossible to get al-Shabaab out of food or money.

“Let’s not be naive, [al-Shabab] “It taxes everything, even cash donations.”

Over the years, the militant group has earned a reputation not only for violence and intimidation, but also for delivering justice in a country steeped in corruption.

In at least four villages near Baidoa, Al-Shabaab operates a network of Sharia (Islamic religious law) courts routinely used by townspeople and reportedly people in Mogadishu and beyond for commercial and Earth settlement.

Further northeast, a sudden uprising against Al-Shabaab has seen local communities and tribal militias, now heavily supported by the central government, expel the group from dozens of towns and villages in recent weeks.

Military successes have sparked a wave of optimism, but it is unclear whether this will help fight hunger or simply distract the Somali government.

“It may or may not [ajudar]. I think it could create more displacement [civil]. Or the government could free up more space and people could have more access. [à ajuda] everywhere,” says local minister Nasir Arush.

In Baidoa itself—a bustling city of narrow, cobblestone streets scarred by decades of conflict and neglect—prices of essential goods like rice have doubled in the past month. Many residents have blamed the drought, but others see other reasons for it.

“Flour, sugar, fat – all increased at the same rate. Sometimes we have to skip meals. I’ve heard of the war between Russia and Ukraine. People say that’s the root of these problems,” said Shukri Moalim Ali, 38. . year, walking into its dry well and barren vegetable garden.

While the fight to prevent the deepening famine in this region is the primary focus, Somalia’s new government also looks to the future.

Responding to the drought, fighting al-Shabaab and campaigning for access to climate justice funds is a challenge. [internacional]’, says Abdirahman Abdishakur.

“We have a young population, a huge diaspora and vibrant entrepreneurial skills. This gives us hope. It’s challenging but we have no alternative.”