SHE CAN’T SHED A TEAR
CHILDREN BEAR THE BRUNT OF Plight of Nasro, the baby who is too dehydrated to cry Weary mothers cradle infants as they fight hunger
EXCLUSIVE
HELPLESS two-year-old Nasro lays a hand across her head and lets out a plaintive cry... yet she physically can’t shed a tear.
The malnourished toddler is too gripped by dehydration. She hasn’t smiled in months. Her gaunt frame tips the scales at barely more than a stone – just twice the weight of an average newborn.
For seven long days her devoted mother Samiro has kept a bedside vigil at the intensive care unit in Banadir Hospital’s stabilisation centre in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.
Nasro is fed via a nasal tube.
PRAYING
Samiro, 25, tells us: “Every time when I was with my daughter day and night I was praying for her to recover… I don’t sleep. The last time I saw her smiling was June. Since then she was feeling dizzy, sick.”
Nasro’s plight encapsulates the pain of an entire nation. The impoverished country in East Africa has been ravaged by decades of war and the Islamist terror group Al-shabaab controls vast swathes of territory.
But an old and equally deadly threat has returned: Drought... leading to crippling hunger.
A catastrophe is unfolding before the world’s eyes. Crops have failed, livestock perished.
As countries around the globe grapple with the impact of the climate crisis, Somalia has endured its worst drought on record.
Research has found climate change has increased the severity of drought in the Horn of Africa.
It is estimated such droughts have become 100 times more likely.
Wartorn Somalia – responsible for a tiny fraction of global emissions – appears to be bearing the brunt of climate change.
And, as the world burns, this fragile nation’s children are on the front line.
Somalia has battled three major droughts in the past 12 years.
This year’s main wet season saw aboveaverage rain in March and April.
But it is the legacy of drought which continues to leave Somalia cruelly exposed.
Some 1.5 million children under the age of five are estimated to be facing acute malnutrition by next July – and some 330,630 could be severely malnourished.
The latest figures come from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a multi-partner initiative. And they make for grim reading.
Some 4.3 million people, a quarter
I was praying for my daughter day and night. I don’t sleep. The last time she smiled was in June...
of the population, are expected to experience crisis levels of hunger, or worse, between now and December – up from 3.7 million in just one year. The very worst effects of famine may have been averted but disaster, it seems, is still at Somalia’s door.
Perched on the hospital bed next to her daughter, mother-of-six Samiro tells how she left Buur Hakaba, in the country’s southern bay region, last year.
She tells us: “One of the major reasons I fled was mainly because of lack of water and through hunger.”
Nasro previously had measles as
well as acute diarrhoea and vomiting. For two days, she was unconscious.
A sibling, aged three, is on another ward being treated for diarrhoea.
NUMBERS
Yards away, a mum named Yasmin, 23, cradles her critically ill daughter Filsan, aged two-and-a-half.
The poor mite softly cries as a medic checks her over. As well as severe malnutrition, she has sepsis, dehydration and gastroenteritis.
Brought to the hospital days earlier, Filsan’s health is improving with treatment but her situation remains desperate.
Fortunately, the numbers are on her side. The hospital’s stabilisation centre, which treats up to 300 kids a month, has a 95% recovery rate.
Yasmin travelled to Mogadishu from Jowhar – farming territory, north of the capital.
Drought ruined their livelihood. Armed with just $12, Yasmin made the journey to the capital to seek treatment for her daughter.
She has four children and left some of them behind to be cared for by her mother. And Yasmin is so grateful for the help Filsan has received.
She says: “I feel a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. I have that worry all the time that she’s not feeling well. At the same time, I also think back [about] the children I left. When we came in here, Filsan was in an emergency situation but after a lot of support by the medical staff, she is recovering and her case is becoming good now.”
An estimated 43,000 people died in Somalia last year due to the drought.
Half of them were children under the age of five, according to an Imperial College study published in March.
The fragile nation has been here before. A famine in 2011 killed more than a quarter of a million people.
Mogadishu has more than 2,000 camps which are home to more than a million internally displaced people.
At one camp we met Mulki, a 20-year-old who has endured enough sorrow for a lifetime.
Holding her nine-month old close while her three-year-girl stands
dutifully by her side, Mulki tells how she has lost two children. A daughter, aged two, had heart issues and died four months ago.
Too poor to afford a burial, the family relied on the generosity of others. Another child died shortly after being born.
RAMSHACKLE
The family has been at the ramshackle camp for five months.
Mulki’s husband is with her and home is a dusty clearing with tents – one where they sleep and another with cooking equipment. The family fled from Balcad, north-east of the capital, seeking sanctuary from conflict – a familiar tale. Mulki says: “[There were] serious conflict issues and also we lost animals because of the droughts.
“We had farms to cultivate... [but they] dried... we could not survive. We used to rent farms.
“But due to having no money to rent those farms we could not afford to survive and get food. As well, because of too much conflict going on and having nowhere to get food from, we had a lot of hunger.”
Save the Children is channelling funds to stricken countries via its Global Hunger Crisis campaign (inset, above). Mohamud Mohammed Hussain, the charity’s country director for Somalia, said: “Yes, rains brought some relief this year and because of sustained humanitarian assistance, the famine was averted last year.
“But failure of the rains in successive seasons, plus the ongoing conflict in Somalia, plus other things like conflict in Ukraine, this has really slowed down the community recovery. “Usually when there is a severe drought, it takes not less than two years for the community to even partially recover.” Francesca Sangiori, humanitarian director at Save the Children Somalia, added: “Although we have seen recent rain in Somalia, the crisis is far from over. In fact, the rains led to flooding earlier this year. “People were killed, hundreds of thousands were made homeless and many more children were left vulnerable to malnutrition and disease outbreaks like cholera. “It will take years for families to rebuild their lives. Whether they’re fighting for survival now or being forced to miss school in order to work, many children in Somalia are suffering at pivotal moments in their lives.
“Our teams can only be there at those moments if humanitarian funding is sustained.
“And it’s vital the international community work together to tackle the root causes of the climate crisis and child hunger and malnutrition.”
Back at Banadir Hospital, Samiro continues to pray for her daughter Nasro’s recovery.
Hopefully, she will see her child smile once more.