ETHIOPIA: Aid arrives too late for some young famine victims at the Dalo Ado refugee camp

Record ID: 345610

  • Title: ETHIOPIA: Aid arrives too late for some young famine victims at the Dalo Ado refugee camp
  • Date: 14th August 2011
  • Summary: KOBE REFUGEE CAMP, DALO ADO, ETHIOPIA (AUGUST 11, 2011) (REUTERS) KOBE REFUGEE CAMP IN DALO ADO REFUGEES WALKING IN THE DUSTY KOBE REFUGEE COMP MELKA DIDA REFUGEE CAMP, DALO ADO, ETHIOPIA (AUGUST 12, 2011) (REUTERS) MEDICINS SANS FRONTIERES (MSF) FLAG WAVING AT THE MSF CLINIC IN MELKA DIDA REFUGEE CAMP IN DALO ADO
  • Embargoed: 29th August 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ethiopia, Ethiopia
  • Country: Ethiopia
  • Topics: Disasters,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVAA9SCZL1R948PWIDQBC9UIUCE7
  • Story Text: Somali refugees fleeing a deadly cocktail of drought and conflict in the Horn of Africa country are now not only in Kenya, but have fled to neighbouring Ethiopia where malnutrition is three times higher than the emergency level.
    Thousands of refugees have been queuing on a daily basis in Dalo Ado, desperately waiting for food rations and medical care.
    The famine in the Horn of Africa shows no signs of stopping and soon it may even engulf as many as six more regions of the lawless nation of Somalia, the U.N. says.
    The United Nations declared a famine in two regions of southern Somalia on July 20. Currently, there is a steady trickle of Somalis coming into Ethiopia, mostly fleeing violence. But in recent months they have been arriving looking for food. The U.N. now estimates that some 12 million people face starvation in the region.
    In a dusty clinic run by the health group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), doctors and nurses are scrambling to treat the most vulnerable. Not only are young children suffering from severe malnutrition, but there are also indications that diseases like measles and cholera could soon spread.
    Most of these refugees have to walk for days through arid and bandit terrain to reach safe enclaves like the Kobe camp. Starving pregnant women included.
    "The children that we are seeing here are in a very severe state of malnutrition with a very advanced malnutrition and with many many medical complications associated especially diarrhoea with dehydration and respiratory tract infections," said Carolina Nanclares said, a MSF doctor.
    Cases like that of the Mohammad family, where Fatuma and Hassan had to bury their one-and-a-half-year-old son Sahro, who died of dehydration, have been all too common.
    "They are very vulnerable population and the mortality rate amongst the malnourished children is very high, and especially in these conditions in which the children are coming with very, very severe complications and very, very late some times. So the care that we can provide sometimes is too late for us to be able to save everyone's life," said Nanclares.
    A recent U.N. report said the situation in the worst affected areas of Ethiopia and Kenya was expected to ease to crisis levels from mere emergency towards the end of this year.
    But the deterioration in southern Somalia was always likely given the very high levels of both severe malnutrition and under-five mortality in combination with worsening pastoral conditions, a continued increase in local cereal prices, and a below-average harvest.
    The Islamist militants in Somalia, fighting to impose a harsh version of sharia law on the war-stricken country, ordered several aid agencies, including the U.N.'s World Food Programme, to halt their operations. The rebels accuse the groups of having a hidden agenda.
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