An acute humanitarian emergency is unfolding in Dollo zone, in Ethiopia’s Somali region, as malnutrition reaches alarming levels, warns Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), whose teams are working in Dollo zone, the worst affected area.
“The numbers of young children with severe acute malnutrition in Dollo zone are the highest ever seen in this area by our teams in the 10 years we have worked in the region,” says Saskia van der Kam, MSF nutritional advisor.
MSF teams, working alongside Ethiopian health authorities, have set up 27 outpatient therapeutic feeding centers and four inpatient therapeutic feeding centers to treat children with severe malnutrition.
In Danod, Lehel-Yucub, Wardher, Galadi and Daratole, MSF teams have treated 6,136 children under five for severe acute malnutrition since January. This is over 10 times more than in the same period of 2016, when 491 children received treatment for the life-threatening condition.
In the first two weeks of June alone, 322 severely malnourished children were admitted in the four inpatient feeding centers supported by MSF. Despite all medical efforts, 51 of these children did not survive. The total number in June has risen to 67 children.
“The deaths of these 67 children show the gravity of the situation,” says van der Kam. “What we are seeing is a humanitarian emergency.”
Thousands of people are fully dependent on external aid
The malnutrition crisis comes in the wake of two failed rainy seasons. Many people have seen their livestock die as a result of the drought, which has forced them to abandon their traditional nomadic way of life. They have settled in informal camps, where they do not have enough food and safe water to survive.
“When the drought came, our animals died so we could no longer stay in the bush,” says Fardausa, who has brought her three-year-old granddaughter, Maida, for treatment to one of the therapeutic feeding centers supported by MSF.
“I have never seen a situation like this. We had animals that gave us everything we needed. Now we have nothing and our children become sick and die.”
Read the complete story at MSF
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See also:
- Saving Lives in El Niño-hit Ethiopia
- Op-Ed: The Humanitarian Situation in Ethiopia
- Ethiopia: Surviving Hard Times through Therapeutic Foods
- EU Announces €165m Additional Support for Famine and Drought Affected Countries in Horn of Africa
- New EU Funding Will Provide Essential Nutrition Treatment for 130,000 Children under the Age of Five in Ethiopia