Malnutrition and armed conflicts threaten the lives of thousands of children in Somalia

Mogadishu (Agenzia Fides) - More than 38 000 Somali children are at serious risk of starvation in the Country which continues to be battered by war. Statistics, based on the latest UN figures, reveals that after three years of severe drought and armed conflict, more than a quarter of a million of the population have died due to the consequences of famine in the Horn of Africa.

In total, more than 731 000 people, including 203 000 severely malnourished children, live in conditions of acute food insecurity, according to a joint study carried out by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit of the United Nations (FSNAU) and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). 
Approximately 202,600 children under the age of five are acutely malnourished, including 38,200 who are severely malnourished and face a high risk of morbidity and death. Malnutrition rates remain consistently high and the prospects for 2015 are worrying. More than 250 000 people, half of them children, have died because of the devastating famine in 2011. (Agenzia Fides 31/01/2015)