Saturday June 9, 2018
By Lisa Schlein
Somali people walk along a street after heavy rain storms hit the capital overnight, Mogadishu, June 8, 2018.
GENEVA —
The U.N. children's fund warns that heavy rains and flooding in
Somalia are putting hundreds of thousands of children at high risk of
disease and death.
The 230,000 people who have been displaced by floods since April are
living in congested, unsanitary conditions that breed disease, according
to UNICEF, and about half of that number are children.
"The rains spread diseases that are particularly deadly for
malnourished children with exhausted, fragile immune systems," said
UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac. "While we have not seen a spike
yet, the risk of further outbreaks is high and compounded by flooding."
Acute malnutrition rates among displaced children have exceeded the
emergency threshold of 15 percent and have reached as high as 21
percent, UNICEF reports. The agency has treated more than 88,000
severely acutely malnourished children with special life-saving
therapeutic feeding this year.
UNICEF has received about 30 percent of this year's $155 million humanitarian appeal.