Current:Home > MySomalia drought blamed for some 43,000 deaths, half of them children, as climate change and conflict collide-LoTradeCoin
Somalia drought blamed for some 43,000 deaths, half of them children, as climate change and conflict collide
View Date:2024-12-23 20:21:39
Nairobi, Kenya — A new report says an estimated 43,000 people died amid the longest drought on record in Somalia last year and half of them likely were children. It is the first official death toll announced in the drought withering large parts of the Horn of Africa, and the report made it clear the "crisis is far from over."
At least 18,000 people are forecast to die in the first six months of this year, according to the report released Monday by the World Health Organization and the United Nations children's agency and carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
- Drought and war could kill 500K Somali children by summer
Somalia and neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya are facing a sixth consecutive failed rainy season while rising global food prices continue to complicate the hunger crisis.
The U.N. and partners earlier this year said they were no longer forecasting a formal famine declaration for Somalia for the time being, but they called the situation "extremely critical" with more than 6 million people hungry in that country alone.
Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from outright starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases like cholera. A formal famine declaration means data show that more than a fifth of households have extreme food gaps, more than 30% of children are acutely malnourished and more than two people out of 10,000 are dying every day.
Some humanitarian and climate officials this year have warned that trends are worse than in the 2011 famine in Somalia in which a quarter-million people died.
Millions of livestock have also died in the current crisis, which as CBS News correspondent Debora Patta found herself, has been compounded by climate change and insecurity as Somalia battles thousands of fighters with al Qaeda's East Africa affiliate, al-Shabaab. The U.N. migration agency says 3.8 million people are displaced, a record high.
The last time a famine was declared in Somalia, in 2011, more than 250,000 people died for lack of nutrition, half of them under the age of five. The world vowed never to let it happen again, but a food security assessment released last month said nearly a half-million children in Somalia were likely to be severely malnourished this year, and many humanitarian officials say the world is looking elsewhere.
"Many of the traditional donors have washed their hands and focused on Ukraine," the U.N. resident coordinator in Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, told visiting U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during a briefing in Mogadishu in January.
The stark figures in the new report highlight the extent to which climate change is wreaking havoc on Somalia's children - among the youngest victims of global warming in a country among those least responsible for carbon emissions. CBS News visited an intensive care ward where every child was under five, all of them hospitalized by the climate change-induced drought that has left their nation starving.
Late last year, officials said another child in Somalia was being admitted to a hospital suffering from malnutrition every single minute of every day.
- In:
- Somalia
- War
- Climate Change
- Africa
- Ukraine
- Russia
- Al Qaeda
- Al-Shabaab
- Drought
veryGood! (78949)
Related
- 12 college students charged with hate crimes after assault in Maryland
- Priscilla Presley says Elvis 'respected the fact that I was only 14 years old' when they met
- Fan ejected from US Open match after German player said the man used language from Hitler’s regime
- Body of Maryland man washes ashore Delaware beach where Coast Guard warned of rip currents
- Diddy's ex-bodyguard sues rape accuser for defamation over claims of 2001 assault
- Judge blocks Wisconsin officials from using federal voter registration form
- Alex Murdaugh seeks new trial in murders of wife and son, claiming clerk tampered with jury
- Mariners' Julio Rodríguez makes MLB home run, stolen base history
- Former North Carolina labor commissioner becomes hospital group’s CEO
- Missing Colorado climber found dead in Glacier National Park
Ranking
- 2 dead in explosion at Kentucky factory that also damaged surrounding neighborhood
- Seal Says His and Heidi Klum's Daughter Leni Made Him a Better Person in Heartfelt Message
- Revisiting Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner's Love Story Will Have You Sending Out an S.O.S
- Extreme weather is the new pandemic for small businesses reliant on tourism
- Fire crews gain greater control over destructive Southern California wildfire
- Danelo Cavalcante press conference livestream: Police share update on escaped Pennsylvania prisoner
- There have been more mass shootings than days in 2023, database shows
- Burning Man exodus operations begin as driving ban is lifted, organizers say
Recommendation
-
NYC bans unusual practice of forcing tenants to pay real estate brokers hired by landlords
-
Steve Harwell, former Smash Mouth singer, dies at 56: 'A 100% full-throttle life'
-
How I learned that creativity and vulnerability go hand in hand
-
What is green hydrogen and why is it touted as a clean fuel?
-
Oprah Winfrey denies being paid $1M for Kamala Harris rally: 'I was not paid a dime'
-
Ernest Hemingway survived two plane crashes. His letter from it just sold for $237,055
-
Georgia Ports Authority pledges $6 million for affordable housing in Savannah area
-
US moves to force recall of 52 million air bag inflators that can explode and hurl shrapnel