As Somalia faces what experts call its worst drought in a decade, children are bearing the brunt. Parents are struggling to feed them, with nearly half of the country’s under-five population likely to suffer from acute malnutrition by June.
Nimco Abdi gently places her six-month-old baby girl onto a plastic basin supported with sisal ropes. The weighing scale from which the basin hangs reads 0.6 stone (4kg). That is almost less than half of what the child’s ideal weight should be.
She is too tiny for her age. Her eyes are sunken, bones are protruding and her skin is wrinkled and pale. She lets out a feeble, barely audible cry as Nimco picks her back up.
«I used to breastfeed her. But I became so sick from lack of food. And she got so thin, I decided to bring her here. At least she can get milk and drugs,» says Nimco.
Nimco has just arrived at a malnutrition stabilisation centre in Luuq, 310 miles (500km) from Mogadishu in south-western Somalia. She is given a bed inside the facility, which she will have to share with another mother.
Her story is one among many mothers who are facing the potential death of their children by malnutrition.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61036465
