THE HEAD of the United Nations refugee agency said drought-ridden Somalia was the “worst humanitarian disaster” in the world.
The comments by Antonio Guterres, head of the UNHCR, came after he met starving people who endured unspeakable hardship to reach the world’s largest refugee camp.
The Kenyan camp, Dadaab, is overflowing with tens of thousands of newly arrived refugees forced into it by the parched landscape in the region where Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya meet.
The World Food Programme estimates that 10 million people already need humanitarian aid and the UN Children’s Fund estimates that more than two million youngsters are malnourished and in need of life-saving action.
Mr Guterres appealed to the world to supply the “massive support” needed by thousands of refugees showing up at this camp every week. More than 380,000 refugees now live there.
In Dadaab, he spoke to a Somalia mother who lost three of her children during a 35-day walk to reach the camp. Mr Guterres said Dadaab held “the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable of the vulnerable”.
He is on a tour of the region to highlight the dire need. “The mortality rates we are witnessing are three times the level of emergency ceilings,” he said.
“The level of malnutrition of the children coming in is 50 per cent,” he said.
Dejene Kebede, a health officer for UNHCR, said there were 58 deaths in camps in one week alone in June.
Up to 2,000 Somali refugees are crossing the border into Ethiopia every day, UNHCR said. Thousands of families arrive in poor conditions often after walking for days in search of food.
Mr Guterres said the influx was overwhelming for UNHCR and other international and local aid organisations: “Nothing can compare to what we have seen this month. I believe Somalia represents the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.”
– (AP)