Somalia is facing a deepening health and nutrition emergency as consecutive failed rainy seasons, soaring water prices and sharp cuts to humanitarian aid drive a surge in malnutrition and outbreaks of preventable diseases, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, warns.<\/p>\n
The organisation said on Tuesday that its teams in Somalia had been witnessing \u201ca worrying trend\u201d of increasing numbers of children arriving at overcrowded camps with severe acute malnutrition or measles, diphtheria and acute watery diarrhoea, diseases that can be prevented.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cWe are seeing children arriving at our hospitals in critical condition, often after travelling for days without food or water,\u201d said Allara Ali, MSF\u2019s project coordinator in Somalia.<\/p>\n The East African nation\u2019s government declared a drought emergency in November, but aid agencies said the response has lagged as funding sinks to its lowest level in a decade.<\/p>\n \u201cThe drought has not only dried up wells but also the support systems families rely on,\u201d Ali said.<\/p>\n Ranked among the world\u2019s most climate-vulnerable countries, Somalia has endured recurrent droughts and floods.<\/p>\n After four consecutive failed rainy seasons, United Nations assessments had warned that 4.4 million people could face crisis-level or worse food shortages by the end of 2025, including 1.85 million children under five at risk of acute malnutrition.<\/p>\n More than 3.3 million people have been forced from their homes, many crowding into camps in Baidoa in the southwest and Mudug in central Somalia.<\/p>\n While need has risen, aid provision has shrunk. Since early 2025, more than 200 health and nutrition facilities have closed nationwide while food assistance has dropped from reaching 1.1 million people a month to 350,000.<\/p>\n In Baidoa, MSF recorded a 48 percent increase in admissions for severe acute malnutrition in October compared with the previous month.<\/p>\n During the same period, 189 children were treated for suspected measles, 95 percent of whom had never been vaccinated, the organisation said.<\/p>\n In Mudug, admissions to inpatient therapeutic feeding centres rose by 35 percent.<\/p>\n Displacement camps, where water and sanitation are scarce, have become flashpoints for disease.<\/p>\n The cost of water has surged beyond the reach of many families with a 200-litre (53-gallon) barrel selling for $2.50 to $4 in Baidoa and Mudug.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot afford water,\u201d said Kaltuma Kerow, a 35-year-old mother living in a displaced persons camp in Baidoa. \u201cWe are extremely short of food and water, and we fear diseases like cholera.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cHunger and lack of clean water are making everything worse.\u201d<\/p>\n In Galkayo, capital of the Mudug region, Rahma Mohamed Ibrahim said life had \u201cbecome extremely hard\u201d for her family over the past seven years as they were repeatedly displaced by floods, conflict and drought.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have eight children, most are malnourished,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Accessing clean water is beyond her family\u2019s means, she said, resulting in illness for her children.<\/p>\n \u201cWe pay $4 for a tank of water or 25 cents for a jerrycan of salty water,\u201d she said. \u201cMy children drink it and get diarrhoea.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to acute shortages, MSF launched emergency water trucking in Baidoa in December, delivering more than 6 million litres (1.6 million gallons) of safe drinking water to 17 sites by mid-January and installing water bladders and solar lighting.<\/p>\n Yet aid workers said such measures barely make a dent due to the scale of the crisis, especially as the harsh dry season takes hold.<\/p>\n \u201cThis situation is unacceptable because it is predictable and largely preventable,\u201d said Elshafie Mohamed, MSF\u2019s country representative in Somalia.<\/p>\n \u201cThe current humanitarian response is leaving millions without access to basic healthcare, food or water.\u201d<\/p>\n MSF is urging donors and authorities to urgently scale up nutrition programmes, vaccination campaigns and water services while also investing in climate-resilient water infrastructure and sustained support for essential healthcare.<\/p>\n Without a coordinated, multisector response, the organisation warned, deaths from preventable causes will continue to rise in the months ahead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Somalia is facing a deepening health and nutrition emergency as consecutive failed rainy seasons, soaring water prices and sharp cuts to humanitarian aid drive a surge in malnutrition and outbreaks of preventable diseases, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, warns. The organisation said on Tuesday that its teams in Somalia had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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