Photo courtesy of CBSNews
Somalia is recognized as having an ongoing food crises over the last several decades. Most recently, between late 2010 and 2011, the nation experienced an extreme drought that led to a global food crisis in an area where women and children were already entrenched in desperate food and economic conditions. Somalia’s 2011-2012 drought was the worst since the 1992-1993 famine. Acute malnutrition and illness further decimated the women and children whose immune system had already been lowered through from long term low access to food, health care, and unsanitary, unsafe living environments.
The United Nations and multi-partner Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system (IPC, an analysis template used for determining relative severity of food insecurity) and regions in Somalia were identified as suffering from severe famine and in the midst of major food shortages. Many people migrated to refugee camps in neighboring countries and as a result, populations in those camps soared and the prevalence of disease also spread throughout the already malnourished and weakened populations. This analysis however did not become realized until 6-9 months after the famine had already spread across southern Somalia and therefore, not only had the damage had been done, but the opportunity to save the lives of women and children had passed. Most families had lost their most vulnerable members or had left the area for refugee camps where they faced more dire circumstances.
Please see the FAO’s Food Security and Analysis Unit’s full report, recently published and commented through the FAO blog. Their report finds that over half of all deaths were children under 5:
To read the full report, please click on the following link: Download the Study Report (PDF, 3.84MB)
The Global Organization for Maternal & Child Health Blog 