Kadijo Abdinoor with son Mohammed Hassan (Pic: Miller Maclean)
Mrs Abdinoor is among tens of thousands of starving Somalis who have trekked to the Dadaab camp in Kenya after the Horn of Africa was struck by a devastating drought.
On Tuesday, the frightened 40-year-old mother waited anxiously as her malnourished son Mohammed Hassan received emergency treatment, although he is so frail after weeks without food that he now lacks the strength to eat.
Mrs Abdinoor said: ‘All I can do now is wait and hope. But the situation is desperate and we plead for the world to help us.’
The camp, now the world’s largest, currently holds 370,000 people, mainly Somalis. But 1,500 new refugees join every day following two years of drought which threatens to claim up to 10million lives in the region.
Mrs Abdinoor, herself suffering malnutrition, walked for four weeks with her husband and their three children to reach Dadaab last month.
Leaving their home with all their possessions on a donkey cart, they were robbed by bandits who beat up her husband Ali.
They were left with just the clothes they were wearing.
Their desperation to borrow to stay alive has left them with a debt they must now repay from their minimal food aid rations.
Mrs Abdinoor now worries that her family’s arrival at Dadaab has come too late to save her son.
By the age of two, Mohammed should weigh at least 12kg (26lb) but he reaches barely 5.1kg (11lb).
On Sunday a UN commissioner described the drought – also affecting Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda – as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.
Source: www.metro.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment