(NLDO)- On July 27, the United Nations declared famine in two areas in southern Somalia and warned that the problem could spread much more widely in the next two months in this Horn of Africa country if donors around the world do not act promptly.

Somalia is struggling with famine, every day dozens, even hundreds of people die of hunger and what haunts people the most in this place are the eyes of the children – most of whom are now no different from “skeletons” with a very slim chance of survival.

 

Seven-month-old Somali baby Mihag Gedi Farah is reduced to skin and bones due to starvation. He weighs the same as a newborn baby.

Mihag’s eyes make anyone who sees them feel uneasy.

 

When he arrived at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) “field hospital” in a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, with his mother, seemingly exhausted after a week-long trek, Mihag was in critical condition, with a 50% chance of survival.

Mihag is just one of the 800,000 children the United Nations (UN) warns could die in the Horn of Africa in what is being described as the worst drought in decades.

Children cry for help!

 

Aid workers are rushing to deliver aid to dangerous and previously inaccessible areas of Somalia, which have been hit hard by the worst drought in 60 years.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP) report, the areas most severely affected by famine are Bakool and Lower Shabelle in southern Somalia.

The emergency could spread to six more areas in southern Somalia if aid is delayed, said Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia.

 

People leave because of despair.

Desperate for food, more than 3,000 people a day are crossing the border into neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya in search of food. More than a third of the refugees are children suffering from severe malnutrition. As a result, they are crammed into refugee camps like Dadaab in northern Kenya. Tens of thousands of people are making their way to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, where they wait in long lines for the government to hand out some food to keep them alive.

 

Women line up outside a relief camp near Somalia’s capital Mogadishu to receive aid.

Many hungry people in the “suffering” country are still far from food aid and lack access to doctors at field hospitals in refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.

The haunting eyes of hungry children, the skeletal figures, the faces shriveled by hunger… can be seen everywhere in this country.

 

Sirat Amine, a nutritionist at the IRC, said Mihag Farah’s chances of survival were 50/50. He weighed just 3.4kg, while a 7-month-old baby should weigh three times that.

“Mihag Farah is extremely malnourished,” said a nurse.

 

“Of course we didn’t tell the mother that the boy might not make it. We tried not to let them lose hope,” Amine said.

Mihag Farah’s mother, Asiah Dagane, was heartbroken by her son’s plight, and she herself was equally devastated. She shared that she felt pain in her heart and mind.

Mihag is the youngest of seven children. His mother, Asiah Dagane, took him and his four siblings from Kismayo, Somalia, to northern Kenya after the family’s entire flock of sheep and cattle died in a drought. The journey took them a week.

Somalia’s prolonged drought has turned into a famine because the Somali government and many aid organizations have been unable to operate in areas controlled by al-Shabab militants – the Somali branch of the international terrorist network al-Qaeda.

Aid agencies including WFP have been unable to access areas under al-Shabab control. Many WFP humanitarian workers have been brutally murdered by al-Shabab.

The UN has announced an emergency airlift of aid this weekend to try to reach at least 175,000 of Somalia’s 2.2 million people who remain unaided.

Relief operations in four southern districts could begin on July 28, but transportation is currently a major problem as roads are difficult to reach.

It is known that the UN has called on the three “giants” of the world, France, Italy and Denmark, to contribute 1 billion USD to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Horn of Africa, but these countries only contributed 200 million USD. The UN said that 1.6 billion USD is needed in the next 12 months to maintain relief work in the Horn of Africa, with 300 million USD for the next 3 months.