Seven-month-old Mihag Gedi Farah will be the frail face of famine in the Horn of Africa. he stares out wide-eyed almost in alarm, his skin pulled taut over his ribs and twig-like arms.
At only 7 fat, (3. 2 kilograms), he weighs as much as a newborn but has the weathered look of an elderly man.
Mihag is just one of 800, 000 children who
Cheap Beats By Dreofficials warn could die over the region. Aid workers are rushing to bring help to harmful and previously unreached regions of drought-ravaged Somalia.
Famine victims like Mihag bring new urgency to their efforts, raising concerns about how many hungry children still keep on being in Somalia, far away from the feeding tubes and doctors within the field hospital at this Kenyan refugee camp.
Mihag's fragile pores and skin crumples like thin leather under the pressure of his mother's arms, as she touches the hollows where a baby's chubby cheeks ought to be.
Sirat Amine, a nurse-nutritionist with the International Rescue Committee, invests Mihag's odds for survival at only 50-50. A baby Mihag's age should weigh about three times what he does.
His mother, Asiah Dagane, fans Mihag with the edge of her headscarf to keep flies away. He whines weakly, and when he does, she bounces him gently to test to soothe him and murmurs softly.
"In my mind, now i'm not well, " she says softly. "My baby is suffering. In my head, I am also sick. "
Mihag is a youngest of seven children in his family. Dagane told The Associated Press by way of a hospital translator that she brought him and four siblings from Kismayo to Kenya after all their sheep and cattle died.
Like the tens of countless other Somalis fleeing starvation, the family traveled sometimes by feet, other times catching rides with passing trucks, cars or buses.
Dagane keeps vigil for her son from the ward, which is painted with cheerful pictures of balloons in addition to fruit, lit with fluorescent bulbs. Other mothers huddle on beds beside babies with IV tubes snaking from their heads or hands.
Some infants cry, others are listless. In the middle of the room hangs a woven basket from the scale — but it's not needed to tell that most babies are dangerously malnourished.
Abdi Ibrahim Yara arrived 20 days ago with his four children, including 1-year-old twins. They are unable to drink the fortified milk and should be nourished by an IV.
He and his wife were on your way for 25 days, but
dr dre beats solo hd whiteshe became sick from malnutrition in addition to died. She was four months pregnant.
"We had a cozy life there, but now there is no one left, " Yara affirms.
Nurse Abukar Abdule says all of those arriving at the particular field hospital complain of "severe malnutrition. " Most have walked from the middle of Somalia, between Kismayo and the capital of Mogadishu.
"We have got to treat them for at least a week, " Abdule states that. "They have no food, shelter or water. Some have conditions. Some died on the road and some were lost. a lot of mothers who come here have lost children. "
The United Nations estimates that more 11 million people in East Africa are afflicted with the drought, with 3. 7 million in Somalia among the worst-hit because the ongoing civil war in the country.
Somalia's prolonged drought became a famine just because neither the Somali government nor many aid agencies may fully operate in areas controlled by al-Qaida-linked militants, and the U. N. is set to declare all of southern Somalia a famine zone as of Aug. 1.
Aid organizations including the U. N. World Food Program never have been able to access areas under the control of the al-Shabab militants, who have killed humanitarian workers and banned your WFP.
The U. N. has said it will airlift emergency rations later this week provide to reach at least 175, 000 of the 2. 2 million Somalis who've not been helped yet.
The new feeding efforts in the four districts of southern Somalia close to the border with Kenya and Ethiopia could begin by Thursday, slowing the flow of thousands of people who have fled their homes in hope of hitting aid.
But the WFP hasn't operated there for more than two years and must find and rehire former employees to help with distribution. Transportation is also a substantial obstacle because land mines have severed key roads along with a landing strip has fallen into disrepair.
The U. N. Food and Agriculture Organization said a coordination conference can be held Wednesday in the Kenyan capital.
Donations are also desperately needed to sustain
cheap beats by dre solo hd blackthe aid effort in the Horn of Africa: the particular U. N. wants to gather $1. 6 billion in the next 12 months, with $300 million of that coming in the next three months.
At the Kenyan refugee camp, Mihag's nurse will take his measurements and describes him as "severely, severely malnourished. "
"We by no means tell the mother, of course, that their baby might not help it become, " the nurse says. "We try to give them expectation. ".
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