Somalia: 110 died of hunger in 48 hours

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia’s prime minister said Saturday that 110 people have died from hunger in the past 48 hours in a single region — the first death toll announced in a severe drought threatening millions of people across the country.

Somalia’s government declared the drought a national disaster on Tuesday. The United Nations estimates that five million people in this Horn of Africa nation need aid, amid warnings of a full-blown famine.

Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire spoke during a meeting with the Somali National Drought Committee. The death toll he announced is from the Bay region in the southwest part of the country alone.

Somalia was one of four regions singled out by the UN secretarygeneral last month in a $4.4 billion aid appeal to avert catastrophic hunger and famine, along with northeast Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen. All are connected by a thread of violent conflict, the UN chief said.

The UN humanitarian co-ordinator, Stephen O’Brien, is expected to visit Somalia in the next few days.

Thousands have been streaming into Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, in search of food aid, overwhelming local and international aid agencies. Over 7,000 internally displaced people checked into one feeding centre recently.

Previous droughts and a quartercentury of conflict, including on going attacks by extremist group al-Shabab, have left the country fragile. Mohamed has appealed to the international community and Somalia’s diaspora of two million people for help.

About 363,000 acutely malnourished children in Somalia “need urgent treatment and nutrition support, including 71,000 who are severely malnourished,” said the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network.