Over half a million children in Somalia facing malnutrition

Somali children displaced by drought and showing symptoms of Kwashiorkor, a severe protein malnutrition causing swelling and skin lesions, sit with their mothers at a malnutrition stabilization center in Mogadishu, Somalia, June 5, 2022. (FARAH ABDI WARSAMEH / AP)

GENEVA – The number of young children in Somalia facing severe acute malnutrition has increased to over half a million – a level which is higher than a 2011 famine when tens of thousands of children died, UN agencies said on Tuesday.

We've got more than half a million children facing preventable death. It's a pending nightmare

James Elder, Spokesperson for the UNICEF

"We've got more than half a million children facing preventable death. It's a pending nightmare," James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's agency UNICEF said at a Geneva press briefing, saying this level had not been seen in any country yet this century.

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The UN has warned that parts of the country will be hit by famine in the coming months as the Horn of Africa region faces a fifth consecutive failed rainy season. Somalia's 2011 famine claimed more than a quarter of a million lives, around half of whom were children.

READ MORE: Severe drought displaces over 100,000 Somalis in June