MOGADISHU — Hundreds of people are abandoning their homes across drought-stricken Somalia in search of food, water and viable grazing land amid alarming indications of the breadth of the food crisis gripping the nation.
Dozens of children and women among those arrived into camps in Burhakaba town, some 180 km southwest of Somali capital Mogadishu.
Towfiq desplaced camp leader, Abdi Ibrahim Mo’alim said hundreds of exhausted people collapsed under shrub trees in the camp.
Mo’alim says these people have food to eat, clean water and shelters to sleep, calling on aid agencies to help them with life savings.
“Fresh desplaced people are arriving each day, tens of women carrying their babies on the arms. They don’t have clean water to drink, let alone a milk”, he said.
He called on humanitarian agencies for struggling to cope with a massive influx of the new people fleeing from other parts of Somalia.
“These people are still suffering from drought and a lack of food”, Mo’alim said.
Somalia is experiencing its third drought in 25 years as a result of a lack of rain, UN says.
More than 6.2 million people – half of Somalia’s population – need urgent humanitarian aid as a result of a drought that has ravaged Somalia.
Almost three million who are going hungry, according to UN.
The UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, said the world “must act now” to avoid a famine that might potentially kill thousands.
Somalia is one of three countries, along with Yemen and Nigeria, on the verge of famine, which has already been declared in South Sudan.
Reporting by Abdirizak Mohamud Tuuryare from Mogadishu, Somalia
