UN warns of severe acute malnutrition amid deaths of Somali children

MOGADISHU, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned Tuesday that malnutrition has reached unprecedented levels in Somalia as the number of child deaths keeps on increasing.

UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder said that every single minute of every single day, a child is admitted to a health facility for treatment of severe acute malnutrition.

"Severely malnourished children are up to 11 times more likely to die of diarrhoea and measles than well-nourished children. With rates such as these, Somalia is on the brink of a tragedy at a scale not seen in decades," Elder said in a statement.

UNICEF said the latest admission rates from August show 44,000 children admitted with severe acute malnutrition.

"That is a child per minute. A child whose mother has walked for days to get her child to help. A child whose body is fighting to survive. A child whose life hangs in the balance," Elder said.

UNICEF said it is deploying mobile teams to "find and treat" children with malnutrition, thus seeking to reach children in hard-to-access locations.

The UN agency said it has treated more than 300,000 children this year for severe acute malnutrition, noting that emergency water trucking has reached 500,000 people in just the last three months.

Elder said term funding is part of the critical change needed to prevent famine from happening again and again.

"When people speak of the crisis facing Somalia today, it has become common for frightful comparisons to be made with the famine of 2011 when 260,000 people died. However, everything I am hearing on the ground - from nutritionists to pastoralists - is that things today actually look worse," Elder said.

He noted that in 2011, after three failed rains, the affected population was half of what it is now, and the overall conditions -- rain and harvest -- were on the mend.

"Things are bad and every sign indicates that they are going to get worse. Without greater action and investment, we are facing the death of children on a scale not seen in half a century," Elder warned.