UN: Famine in Africa killing more than 100 children a day

Associated Press

MOGADISHU, Somalia

A famine spreading through Somalia is killing more than a hundred children each day, the U.N. said Monday, and warned that hundreds of thousands more people may die in the coming months unless they receive urgent help.

The starvation is mostly taking place out of sight of the world media, in areas of southern Somalia under control of violent Islamist insurgents.

“Hungry people are only waiting for death,” said Nor Anshur, a father of five who lost one of his children in the Bay region, a former agricultural breadbasket that the U.N. declared Somalia’s sixth famine zone Monday. “We saw our neighbors’ children and elderly people dying every day for lack of food.”

Like tens of thousands of other Somalis, Anshur left his drought-ravaged home and trekked to Somalia’s capital hoping for help. But delivering food is difficult and dangerous. Even in the government-controlled capital of Somalia, where 9,000 African Union peacekeepers are on patrol, organized theft of truckloads of food aid is rife, and shoot-outs at aid distributions are frequent.

Conditions are even worse in areas controlled by the Islamist insurgency, which holds much of southern Somalia. It has forbidden many aid agencies to work in its territory where the famine is most severe.

The latest surveys of the U.N. Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia found hundreds of people are dying every day from the famine. At least half of them are children. Tens of thousands of Somalis already have died this year due to the severe violence, drought and famine, the U.N. said.