Seven-month-old Mihag Gedi Farah is the frail face of famine in the Horn of Africa. he or she stares out wide-eyed almost in alarm, his skin pulled taut over his ribs and twig-like arms.
At only 7 weight, (3. 2 kilograms), he weighs as
discount beats headphonesmuch as a newborn but has the weathered look of the elderly man.
Mihag is just one of 800, 000 children who officials warn could die across the region. Aid workers are rushing to bring help to dangerous 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 stay in Somalia, far away from the feeding tubes and doctors while in the field hospital at this Kenyan refugee camp.
Mihag's fragile epidermis crumples like thin leather under the pressure of his mother's fingers, as she touches the hollows where a baby's chubby cheeks ought to be.
Sirat Amine, a nurse-nutritionist with the International Rescue Committee, puts 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 while using edge of her headscarf to keep flies away. He whines weakly, and when he does, she bounces him gently provide to soothe him and murmurs softly.
"In my mind, i'm not well, " she says softly. "My baby is sick and tired. In my head, I am also sick. "
Mihag may be the youngest of seven children in his family. Dagane told The Associated Press through a hospital translator that she brought him and four siblings from Kismayo to Kenya in the end their sheep and cattle died.
Like the tens of countless other Somalis fleeing starvation, the family traveled sometimes by 12 inches, other times catching rides with passing trucks, cars or buses.
Dagane keeps vigil for her son inside ward, which is painted with cheerful pictures of balloons along with fruit, lit with fluorescent bulbs. Other mothers huddle on beds beside babies with IV tubes snaking from their heads or poker hands.
Some infants cry, others are listless. In the middle of the room hangs a woven basket at a scale — but it's not needed to tell that many of the babies are dangerously malnourished.
Abdi Ibrahim Yara arrived 20 days ago together with his four children, including 1-year-old twins. They are unable to drink the fortified
beats studio ferrari yellow/red milk and has to be nourished by an IV.
He and his wife were on the road for 25 days, but she became sick from malnutrition along with died. She was four months pregnant.
"We had a at ease life there, but now there is no one left, " Yara states that.
Nurse Abukar Abdule says all of those arriving at that field hospital complain of "severe malnutrition. " Most have walked through the middle of Somalia, between Kismayo and the capital of Mogadishu.
"We need to treat them for at least a week, " Abdule states. "They have no food, shelter or water. Some have diseases. Some died on the road and some were lost. quite a few mothers who come here have lost children. "
The United Nations estimates that more 11 million people in East Africa are suffering from the drought, with 3. 7 million in Somalia among the worst-hit due to ongoing civil war in the country.
Somalia's prolonged drought became a famine in part because neither the Somali government nor many aid agencies could 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 by Aug. 1.
Aid organizations including the U. N. World Food Program never have been able to access areas under the control of that al-Shabab militants, who have killed humanitarian workers and banned that WFP.
The U. N. has said it will airlift emergency rations later this week give to reach at least 175, 000 of the 2. 2 million Somalis who have 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 tens of thousands of people who have fled their homes in hope of getting aid.
But the WFP hasn't operated there for more than 2 yrs and must find and rehire former employees to help by using distribution. Transportation is also a substantial obstacle because land mines have severed key roads plus a landing strip has fallen into disrepair.
The U. N. Food and Agriculture Organization said a
Beats Studio Ferrari Red Limited Edition Headphones salecoordination conference will be held Wednesday in the Kenyan capital.
Donations are also desperately necessary to sustain the aid effort in the Horn of Africa: the U. N. wants to gather $1. 6 billion in our next 12 months, with $300 million of that coming in the subsequent three months.
At the Kenyan refugee camp, Mihag's nurse requires his measurements and describes him as "severely, severely malnourished. "
"We in no way tell the mother, of course, that their baby might not ensure it is, " the nurse says. "We try to give them expect. ".
Commentaires
Il n'y a aucun commentaire sur cet article.