U.N. chief urges food aid for 6M in Somalia

BAIDOA, Somalia — Visibly shocked by the suffering of malnourished Somalis and cholera victims during an emergency visit, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged international support to alleviate Somalia’s worsening hunger crisis.

“Every single person we have seen is a personal story of tremendous suffering. There is no way to describe it,” Guterres said after seeing skeletal men, women and children in a cholera ward in Baidoa, 151 miles northwest of the capital, Mogadishu.

Somalia’s prolonged drought has caused widespread hunger, and the shortage of clean water has resulted in cholera.

On his first field trip since becoming the U.N. chief, Guterres said Somalia’s famine crisis requires a massive response.

He said 6 million people, or almost half of the country’s population, need assistance.

“People are dying. The world must act now to stop this,” he tweeted on his arrival in this Horn of Africa nation.

“We need to make as much noise as possible,” Guterres said. “Conflict, drought, climate change, disease, cholera. The combination is a nightmare.”

In Baidoa’s cholera wards, adults and children had sunken eyes and protruding ribs. Because of the cholera-induced diarrhea, medical workers sprayed the wards with chlorine to disinfect the areas.

Guterres also visited a camp with hundreds of families displaced by the drought and Somalia’s battle against the Islamic extremists of al-Shabab. He saw hungry families seeking shelter under flimsy plastic.

“I have nothing. This is not a shelter, we barely get any food here and we have no protection. It’s not safe, I am suffering,” said 34-year-old Deira Mohamed Nor, with her 10-month-old baby girl Dahiro Ishaak Hussein, who is sick with malaria. Nor said she recently lost one of her children to diarrhea.

Guterres said he was moved by the misery.