Visibly shocked by the suffering of
malnourished Somalis and cholera victims during an emergency visit, U.N.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged international
support to alleviate Somalia’s worsening hunger crisis.
“Every
single person we have seen is a personal story of tremendous suffering.
There is no way to describe it,” Guterres said after seeing skeletal
men, women and children in a cholera ward in Baidoa, 243 kilometres (151
miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu.
Somalia’s prolonged drought has caused widespread hunger, and the shortage of clean water has resulted in cholera.
On
his first field trip since becoming the U.N. chief, Guterres said
Somalia’s famine crisis requires a massive response. He said 6 million
people, or almost half of the country’s population, need assistance.
“People are dying. The world must act now to stop this,” he tweeted on his arrival in this Horn of Africa nation.
“We
need to make as much noise as possible,” Guterres said. “Conflict,
drought, climate change, disease, cholera. The combination is a
nightmare.”
In Baidoa’s cholera wards,
adults and children had sunken eyes and protruding ribs. Because of the
cholera-induced diarrhea, medical workers sprayed the wards with
chlorine to disinfect the areas.
Guterres
also visited a camp with hundreds of families displaced by the drought
and Somalia’s battle against the Islamic extremists of al-Shabab. He saw
hungry families seeking shelter under flimsy plastic.
“I
have nothing. This is not a shelter, we barely get any food here and we
have no protection. It’s not safe, I am suffering,” said 34-year-old
Deira Mohamed Nor, with her 10-month-old baby girl Dahiro Ishaak
Hussein, who is sick with malaria. Nor said she recently lost one of her
children to diarrhea.
Guterres said he was moved by the misery.
“It
makes me feel extremely unhappy with the fact that in today’s world,
with the ... the richness that exists, that these things are still
possible. It is unbelievable,” Guterres said. He wore personal
protection armour and was surrounded by African Union peacekeepers and
bodyguards to protect against possible suicide bombings and attacks by
the extremists who plague Somalia.
Somalia
is part of a massive $4-billion aid appeal launched last month for four
nations suffering from conflict and hunger. The others are Nigeria,
Yemen and South Sudan, where famine already has been declared in two
counties.
Somalia over the weekend
announced its first death toll since declaring a national disaster last
week, saying 110 people had died in a 48-hour period in a single region.
Meeting
the U.N. chief, Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed said: “My
first priority is to address this drought crisis, and my main priority
is to make an appeal to the international community to help us.”
Somalia
is one of the six Muslim-majority countries affected by the revised
travel ban ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump. Mohamed took
Guterres’ visit as an opportunity to speak out against it.
“Definitely
we will prefer to see that this travel ban should be lifted and, of
course, we have to communicate with the U.S. government because as
everyone knows we have a large Somali community in the United States who
I’m sure have contributed to the U.S. economy,” said Mohamed, in
response to press questions. He himself has dual Somali-U.S.
citizenship.
Mohamed added: “We have to
address the root cause, which is the security situation here and how to
defeat (Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebels) al-Shabab here.”
Guterres
said he was pleased to meet Mohamed, who was elected and inaugurated
last month. “I am bringing a message of solidarity to the president. A
message of support,” Guterres said. “Let’s hope he can start an
inclusive government.”
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