‘It is getting worse. I’m afraid the rest will also die’
Families bury children unnamed as UN says Horn of Africa drought threatens 20 million with starvation
On the parched plains of Somaliland, the latest victim of the drought is not even old enough to have a name. By local tradition, a sheep ought to have been slaughtered to name Khadra Saaed’s baby boy, but none could be found. So he died an unknown casualty of an unreported crisis, seven days after he was born.
That night, close to the village of Unuunley, his father buried him by moonlight. It was the 10th such burial he has attended in a month, as the worst drought ever recorded here has swept across the country.
This family was sustained by 100 animals but is now down to its last goat. Ms Saeed has been surviving on one meal of rice a day and is so hungry that she could not produce breast milk to feed her malnourished son. Now that she has lost him, she has no time to grieve; she has four remaining children to worry about.
“I’m afraid they will also die,” she said. “Our situation is getting worse every day. We have lost everything.” Five times a day, she prays for rain.
Not far away, in Boodhley, the men had been digging yet another grave. Until a few months ago, Omar Siad Elmi was a stalwart of this village, where he has lived for 25 years. Last week, the 56-year-old passed away, another victim of starvation.
One of his friends, a young man named Mohamad Jama Salebaa, stood over the plot where Mr Elmi’s body had been interred hours before. There are two dozen more graves in this makeshift cemetery in the orange-red dust, amid the ghostly grey remains of once-verdant bushes and the rotting carcasses of sheep and goats, their skulls scattered in the sand.
“We are afraid. If the rain does not come, many more people will suffer,” Mr Salebaa said. Pointing to the graves, he added: “We will be back here again.”
In some areas of Somalia – and the self-declared republic of Somaliland – there has been no rain for three years. The majority of the population are nomads but their animals have no pasture. Eight in 10 of their livestock have died, depriving them of food and an income source. Crops have failed and water has run low. According to aid workers, 6.2 million people are going hungry, with 71,000 children at high risk of death. Just last weekend, 110 people died of hunger in one region. And some fear this could be worse than the famine of 2011, which killed 260,000. The government has declared a national disaster and last week António Guterres, the UN secretary general, made an emergency visit. “The world must act now,” he said.
The crisis in Somalia is just one of an unprecedented four famines looming at once, threatening 20 million people with starvation. A fa famine was declared in South Sudan threethre weeks ago, but Somalia, Nigeria an and Yemen are also vulnerable thanks t to a toxic combination of drou drought and conflict. Ethiopia and Kenya have been hit by drought, too.t StephenStep O’Brien, the UN’s humanitarian chief, said the disasters representrepre potentially the worst humanitarian catastrophecatas since 1945. “Without“W coordinated globalglo efforts, people willwil simply starve to death,”dea he warned the UN Security Council. HassanHass Noor, who heads Save the Children in Somalia,Som said his country was at “the tipping point”. “The situation is critical,” he told The Telegraph. “Mortality is increasing every week.” If rain does not come soon, the results will be “catastrophic”.
In the Somaliland town of Burao, the bridge stands tall across an empty river, along which women walk with their few remaining goats. Nearby, the child nutrition centre is now full.
Inside, 19 anxious mothers lean over their children, who keep up a chorus of wailing. Sometimes as many as four babies cry out in agony at once, but each cry is distinct. Their rusty beds sit on a concrete floor, beneath mosquito nets. Cobwebs adorn the ceiling and wire mesh hangs on the windows. There are light sockets but no bulbs.
All of the children here have severe acute malnutrition. At one bed, a nurse held the hand of an 11-month-old boy suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting, trying three times to find a vein in his hand for a cannula. As a fly crawled across his face, his mother stroked him to try to quiet his screams.
At another bed, Saynab Ali Aden comforted her one-year-old son, Saleeban. She travelled three days to bring her son to hospital. He now has a feeding tube taped to his mouth. “He weeps all night every night,” she said.
In this clinic alone, 32 malnourished children were admitted last month, one of whom died. “We get new patients every day,” said Saynab Ibrahim, a nurse who has two children of her own. “We cannot accommodate everyone. When we get more severe cases, we have to discharge others.”
Yet those who make it to the clinic are relatively fortunate. Hinda Cadare lives 20 miles away but cannot afford transport nor tests. So the 19-year-old, who is heavily pregnant, can only sit and look on as her one-year-old son, Abdirahman, starves. “He has no food and no medicine,” she said. “Even if he eats something, he vomits. His situation is getting worse and worse.”
The boy, who wore nothing but an orange T-shirt, has a tiny neck and a swollen head. Tears fell down his face. To begin with, he wailed. Soon, even that was too tiring, so he gave out a series of distressed croaks instead. “There are many people like us in the countryside,” Ms Cadare said. “Where I come from, two children have died.”
Why, then, has she moved closer to the town? “In case my son dies,” she said, referring to the cemetery. “I have to have somewhere to bury him.” Readers who wish to donate to Save the Children’s appeal for the hungry of east Africa can visit savethechildren.org.uk/ eastafricagive or call 0800 8148148
‘He has no food and no medicine. Even if he eats something, he vomits. His situation is getting worse’