Friday October 6, 2017
A severe drought has claimed the lives of at least nine people in Somalia's Galkayo District, media reported.
The state broadcaster, Mogadishu Radio, quoted Galkayo Mayor Hersi Yusuf Bare giving the statistics while warning that the situation could get worse.
“The destitute people I met at Harhaar pastoral land are deeply susceptible to the effects of the famine generated by the severe drought,” said Mr Bare.
“So far, nine people have died in the areas visited, a sign that many more were vulnerable,” he added.
The mayor said the severe weather conditions had displaced thousands from Galkayo, which lies some 750km north of the capital Mogadishu.
He stressed that many nomadic people had been forced to migrate as the drought continued to decimate most of their livestock.
The generally insufficient rains in the southern and central Somalia have severely diminished the local food supplies.
UN agency OCHA on August 31 stated that malnutrition had reached emergency levels in a number of locations in southern and central Somalia.
“Malnutrition, one of the leading indicators of the crisis, has reached emergency levels in a number of locations in southern and central Somalia, primarily, though not exclusively among displaced populations," OCHA was quoted saying in ReliefWeb .
“Overall, some 388,000 acutely malnourished children are in need of critical nutrition support, including life-saving treatment for more than 87,000 severely malnourished children."