(Updated: Posted December 8, 2006)
As if the Somalis did not have it bad enough already:
"Despite rains, effects of '05 drought still felt in Somalia; Widespread malnutrition plagues children" by Elizabeth A. Kennedy/Associated Press December 8, 2006
WAJID, Somalia -- Hediga Mohamed made sure to tie a string of wooden beads around her starving 4-month-old baby's neck for good luck when they showed up at a clinic here 15 days ago.
"It's working. She's getting better," Mohamed said yesterday, sitting on a green mat at the clinic where she has been staying while baby Rukia is being fed fortified milk and cereals.
In this impoverished and violence-racked east African country, thousands of people -- particularly children under 5 -- are still suffering from severe malnourishment linked to last year's scorching drought despite heavy rains that have inundated the region in recent months.
"Once your cattle and your goats are dead, even when it rains they don't come back," said Penny Ferguson, a spokeswoman for the UN World Food Program.
Somalia has some of the world's worst health indicators. Life expectancy at birth is 46 years; a quarter of children die before they reach 5. In many areas of Somalia, malnutrition rates are 20 percent or above, and the drought exacerbated that number, Ferguson said.
An exact count is difficult due to the country's volatility -- Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991. A Council of Islamic Courts, whose strict interpretation of Islam has drawn comparisons to the Taliban, rules much of southern Somalia, increasingly sidelining an internationally backed interim government.
The recent rains have interrupted any attempts to recover from the drought. Since October, flooding and related waterborne diseases have killed 230 people in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Salada Somo, 30, said the drenching rain simply washed away fields that had been to dry to grow maize and sorghum. Her youngest of four children, 2-year-old Habiba, has suffered the most from the lack of food, Somo said.
"If I did not come here my child would die," Somo said as her daughter was examined by a nurse for Action Against Hunger, which operates the clinic. The nurse placed a whimpering Habiba in a small sling to be weighed on a hanging scale.
The girl's ribs protrude and her eyes were sunken. At 14 pounds, she's half the normal weight for a 2-year-old. Any tinier, she would have been to fragile for the sling and a nurse would have had to put her in a red bucket to hang on the scale.
"I would look at Habiba and see that her sickness is getting worse, so I couldn't be happy, I couldn't sleep, Somo said, her head wrapped in a black scarf.
Somo's three other children, ages 5, 8, and 10, are able to eat the sorghum her family gets from aid agencies and so are not starving. But Habiba couldn't keep it down.
Vanessa Cagnion, the nurse in charge of the general nutrition program at the clinic, said there are 24 in-patients; most of them children under 5.
Since the facility opened in March, the group has treated more than 600 people there and during weekly trips outside the town.
"When they come here their metabolism is upside down, they are very irritable, very weak, of course. The first week is always a bit sensitive," Cagnion said. Fewer than 10 children undergoing treatment at the clinic have died, she said.
Mohamed, whose baby Rukia wears the wooden beads, said the girl's twin sister died several weeks ago. But Rukia was gaining weight at the clinic and has already put on 3 pounds to reach nearly 6.6 pounds. She's now just one pound away from here target."
I'm in tears upon the repost, readers! That report broke my heart!
How come this world doesn't care about its women and their babies?
If that is not bad enough, the Somalis have to put up with this type of treatment from the western imperialists:
"Somali Rebels Warn of War After U.N. Backs Peacekeepers"
MOGADISHU, Somalia, Dec. 7 (AP) — Islamic militants in control of most of southern Somalia warned Thursday that war would erupt over a United Nations decision authorizing an African force to protect the country’s internationally recognized but virtually powerless government.
The Security Council unanimously approved the resolution on Wednesday, hoping to restore peace in Somalia and avert a broader conflict in the region.
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi welcomed the resolution, which also partly lifts a 1992 arms embargo so the regional force can be supplied with weapons and military equipment.
A spokesman for the Islamic movement said the resolution would introduce sophisticated weapons into Somalia and provoke a war between his group and the government.
“We see the approval of the resolution as nothing but an evil intention,” said the spokesman, Abdirahin Ali Mudey.
He accused the Security Council of giving Ethiopia, the main ally of the Somali government, permission to occupy the country. “The international community has proven to be biased and unjust,” he said.
The resolution prohibits Somalia’s neighbors from sending in soldiers, which would bar participation in the force by troops from Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya."
And we all know what happened shortly afterward!
