Geneva: If the world does not act immediately, an explosion of child deaths is about to happen in the Horn of Africa, UNICEF’s Deputy Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Rania Dagash, has said.
"An estimated 386,000 children in Somalia are now in desperate need of treatment for life-threatening severe acute malnutrition - now exceeding the 340,000 children who required treatment at the time of the 2011 famine," Dagash said in a statement on Tuesday
"The number of children facing this most deadly form of malnutrition has increased by more than 15 percent in the space of five months," Dagash said
Across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, the UNICEF official said, more than 1.7 million children are in urgent need of treatment for severe acute malnutrition.
"Four rainy seasons have failed in the space of two years – killing crops and livestock and drying up water sources," Dagash said.
"Forecasts suggest the next October to December rains are likely to fail too," Dagash said.
According to the UNICEF official, UNICEF and other agencies have been repeatedly sounding the alarm bell on this crisis.
"But our appeal is still drastically underfunded – we have under a third of what we need this year," Dagash said.
"The international community – led by the G7 who will meet in Germany in June - needs to commit new, additional funding now to save lives," Dagash said.
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