UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, arrived on Tuesday to an “emergency visit” to drought-stricken Somalia, saying he wanted to “focus on famine and cholera” in the Horn of Africa country.
“People are dying, the world must act now to stop this,’’ Guterres noted.
The UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) said Guterres had come to Somalia to raise global awareness about the country’s humanitarian crisis.
He was due to visit a displaced people’s camp.
Report says the drought is affecting 6.2 million people.
However, the government has declared a national disaster in parts of the country, and aid agencies fear the situation could escalate into an official famine.
No fewer than 110 people have been killed by hunger and a cholera outbreak, the government announced over the weekend.
The aid effort has been hampered by the government’s military conflict with the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab, which is preventing aid agencies from accessing part of the country.
“With the support of the international community it is possible to avert the worst and for Somalia to find the way to peace,’’ UNSOM quoted Guterres as saying.
NAN recalls that on Friday the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) launched a 24.6-million-dollar appeal to meet the emergency needs of over one million Somalis affected by drought.
IOM’s 2017 Somali drought appeal was developed to enhance current response and expand the UN migration agency’s geographic footprint within the country.
The agency said the fund would help it to scale up lifesaving interventions throughout Somalia where over 6.2 million people are food insecure.
Humanitarian agencies have reported worrying similarities to the 2011 famine in Somalia, when over a quarter of 1 million people lost their lives.
According to IOM, wages are collapsing, local food prices are rising, animal deaths are increasing, malnutrition rates are starting to rise, water prices are spiraling and Somalis are moving in growing numbers in search of food and water.
IOM said its teams are rapidly scaling up interventions in the fields of health, shelter, water and sanitation, protection and food security.
President of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, has acknowledged the devastation of the drought and urged all stakeholders to “respond more effectively” to the famine threat.
(dpa/NAN)
ACO/SH