High Rates of Malnutrition among Displaced Somali Children

Photo: IMC

Perched in a tree swing, the small boy is weighed for malnutrition. The need for humanitarian aid is staggering, as malnutrition rates continue to rise in Somalia’s overcrowded refugee camps.

January 30, 2008

Afgoye, Somalia - Xaawo Hussein’s weight has dropped to seven kilograms (about 15 pounds). Her stomach bloated and her arms and legs reduced to sticks, the girl has been sick for weeks. “She has diarrhea and it won’t stop,” her grandmother Asha Ujub says, who doesn’t know the child’s exact age but believes Xaawo is four years old. The hollow-eyed girl she holds in her arms is so small and thin she could be two.

Camp life is taking its toll on young children, the most vulnerable among the more than 200,000 displaced Somalis who have settled along the road between Mogadishu and Afgoye after hostilities escalated in October and November of last year.

International Medical Corps (IMC) runs three mobile clinics in the area since the exodus from Mogadishu turned the 30 kilometer long so-called ‘Afgoye corridor’ into the fastest growing displacement camp in the world.

International Medical Corps' mobile clinics see approximately 8,000 patients in the displacement camps per month. The number of diarrhea cases among children under five has increased from 165 in November to 670 in December of last year alone. Health staff observe similar trends for anemia, respiratory infections, and intestinal parasites.

Photo: IMC

A two-year child clutches to his grandmother after fighting forced the two to flee their homes two months ago. His grandmother describes that ever since he arrived at the resettlement camp, he has been sick, struggling with pneumonia, diarrhea, and vomiting.

Every child coming to the clinics has her height and weight measured. The most severe cases of malnutrition like Xaawo will be referred to inpatient facilities run by partner organizations. Within the next few weeks IMC will provide nutritional support to children with severe malnutrition who can still be treated as outpatients.

“People have settled along the road and many women and children cannot travel the distances to the next health facility,” says Patrick Mweki, IMC country director in Somalia, who recently visited Afgoye. “We must provide support to children who are sliding into malnutrition closer to where they are currently staying.”

Humanitarian assistance from international and local NGOs is reaching the displaced, but the demand is overwhelming. Families sleep up to ten people in huts made from sticks, plastic sheets, and bits of fabric that hardly protect them from the sun and the dust. Although latrines have been built, more than 40 people share one outhouse, in some places even more. Lack of hygiene and clean water have made diarrhea cases among young children increase dramatically. “We are concerned about this trend because diarrhea causes severe malnourishment and we are seeing more and more of it with young children,” says Mweki.