![]() ![]() The average American spends more than $1,300 per year on food that is wasted and thrown away. The parasites leave such children anemic, and what food they get may go to the worms rather than to their own bodies.Īn albendazole deworming pill, when purchased by UNICEF in bulk, costs 4 cents and can kill the worms. Hafsa Mohamed, a pediatrician at Banadir Hospital, which with support from UNICEF and Concern Worldwide is doing a heroic job keeping sick children alive.Ī majority of the children in the hospital have worms, she said, and she showed photos of one child vomiting worms and another with a diaper full of worms. “Hygiene gets worse in an economic crisis, when people can’t afford to use water,” explained Dr. ![]() Malnutrition often kills children indirectly by weakening the body, so the immediate cause of death can be cholera, measles, pneumonia or diarrhea. Perhaps as a result, her son, Mohamed, has a severe case of cholera. “We don’t spare water for bathing or hand-washing.” “We use water for cooking and drinking,” explained Marko Ali, a mom huddled over her baby boy in Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu. This is twice the price it was a year ago, so water is becoming unaffordable for uses such as washing. Somalis in resettlement camps pay 4 cents to fill a 20-liter jerry can with water. Neither is the rapid slide toward increased starvation.īling H20 sells “handcrafted alkaline water” in a bottle with Swarovski crystals for $2,700 a bottle. But while Somalia’s numbers are uncertain, the hunger is not and the deaths are not. Supposedly 14 percent of women are obese, although I didn’t meet any of them, and childhood stunting from malnutrition purportedly is below average for Africa. UNICEF statisticians acknowledge that actual child mortality in 2020 could have been lower than 35,000 or higher than 156,000. Let me just acknowledge, though, that all the numbers in this article may be wrong, for it’s impossible to gather accurate data in an impoverished country in the middle of a war. Europe and the Gulf countries can and should follow the American example and do more.īut let’s face it: These are responsibilities the rich world should accept when our pets are dieting and Somali children are starving. ![]() I’m not trying to shame Americans who love their dogs and relish their luxuries (me included!), and in truth the United States has been generous toward Somalia, providing $1.3 billion in aid since October 2021 - two-thirds of the humanitarian assistance here. ![]() UNICEF estimates that its cost to prevent severe acute malnutrition is $55 per child a year, or just 15 cents per day.Ī large American dog easily consumes $2 worth of dog food each day. Perhaps more important, it has diverted attention and assistance that would otherwise have eased the humanitarian crisis here. Some 90 percent of Somalia’s wheat imports used to come from Russia or Ukraine, and that war has raised prices of all food and fertilizer. An extremist Islamic group, Al Shabab, is battling the government, and the combination of war and drought has driven some 3.8 million Somalis from their homes.Īnother war - the one in Ukraine - is also killing children here in Somalia. What’s needed in Somalia isn’t just aid, however, but also peace. Two or three packs a day can revive a child. To visit Somalia is to be dizzied by the world’s nutrition gaps.īerco’s Popcorn in Chicago offers luxury “billion-dollar popcorn” with gold flakes at $2,500 for a large tin.Ī pack of Plumpy’Nut, a high-protein, high-energy food for severely malnourished children like Sabirin, costs 38 cents. The United Nations cites estimates that as the crisis escalates toward famine, 1.8 million Somali children under 5 will be acutely malnourished by July. Multiply Sabirin by hundreds of thousands, and you begin to see the picture. There is no money for protein, so Sabirin is at risk of becoming the family’s fourth dead child. When they get the cash, the family shares a single meal a day, such as rice with a hint of tomato paste. She explained that the family once owned 100 goats, but all have died and the family eats only when she or her husband find odd jobs paying at most $2 a day. “She’s not getting enough food,” explained her mom, Amina Moallim, 27, who has already lost three children. ![]()
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