“So many children dying,” says the Somalia drought as famine approaches

Somalia, a nation of 15 million people emerging from its past as a failed state, can be seen as the last in a world beset by food shortages.

A man pulling a donkey cart through the sand with two young, quiet lads on board appears. The sky is cloudy. It might pour. Not at all. For a very long time, it hasn’t. 

At the age of 60, Mohamed Ahmed Diriye is completing the most dreadful journey of his life. Two weeks ago, he left a beach town on the northern border of Somalia. There were fatalities.  

Animals were perishing. He made the decision to stop working as a day labourer and leave the country, travelling through areas controlled by Islamic extremists and across a landscape of corpses. 

He is worn out after travelling 700 miles. There is no more food. He holds the practically empty cart in one hand and a tattered stick in the other. His children are only 4 and 5. As per Diriye, they had made an effort to flee. But this place is experiencing the same drought. 

Droughts in Somalia, a poetry-loving country, are called after the type of suffering they cause. For its nationwide reach, there was Prolonged in the 1970s, Cattle Killer in the 1980s, and Equal five years ago. Famine struck ten years ago, killing a quarter of a million people. 

The current drought, according to Somalis, is the worst they can recall. It hasn’t been given a name yet. One is offered without hesitation by Diriye—White Bone—who is of the opinion that no one can survive in some of the areas he has visited. 

The drought, which began two years ago and has lasted four failed wet seasons, has shocked the hardy herders and farmers. The sixth season, which will probably also end early in the next year, is currently under progress.  

This month could see the declaration of a rare famine, the first big one anywhere in the globe since the famine in Somalia ten years ago.  

According to United Nations data, thousands of people have perished, including roughly 900 children under the age of five who were receiving treatment for malnutrition.  

According to the U.N., half a million of these kids are in danger of dying, which is “a number, a potential horror, we have not seen this century.” 

Somalia, a nation of 15 million people emerging from its past as a failed state, can be seen as the last in a world beset by food shortages. The proud pastoralist nation that has endured decades of drought now stutters as many global crises hit at once. 

Climate change is one among them, with some of the most severe effects of warming being felt in Africa. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia caused grain ships carrying enough food to feed hundreds of millions of people to become stuck in port.  

A decline in humanitarian aid as attention turned to the conflict in Ukraine. one of the deadliest Islamic extremist organizations in the world, which restricts humanitarian distribution. 

They all claim to have gotten little to no assistance. Black tea and plain rice could be the only meals for the day. Many campers—mostly women and children—beg from their neighbors or sleep hungry. 

Mothers often discover that the feverish, withering kid they were carrying had passed away while they were walking for days or weeks through desolate landscapes in quest of assistance.  

Adego Abdinur adds, “We’d cry, take a break, and pray. We would bury them next to the road. 

In front of her new residence, a flimsy structure made of plastic bags and fabric fastened together with cord and cut twigs, she is holding her nude 1-year-old child.  

There are hundreds like it spread throughout the desert. Children giggle as they pour beloved water from a plastic jug into their hands, sipping and spitting with joy behind a thorn barrier separating her tent from another. 

Shopkeeper Khadija Abdi Ibrahim, 60, buys pricey grain, grinds it, and uses it as feed to keep her goats, sheep, and cattle alive. She claims that since last year, the cost of cooking oil and other commodities has risen, making it harder for displaced people to buy food with WFP-issued coupons.  

Throughout Somalia, hundreds of families continue to appear out of nothingness, bringing only sorrow. Issack and her husband made the decision to bury their daughter in the center of the deserted area. Issack explains, “We wanted to be able to identify her quickly. Eight more hungry daughters are awaiting at the camp.