UN humanitarian agencies on Monday said that no fewer than 60 million people in the Horn of Africa urgently needed humanitarian assistance.
Liesbeth Aelbrecht, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) incident manager for the greater Horn of Africa emergency, said in a statement that children in the area were also in urgent need.
“About five million children under the age of five years were estimated to be facing acute malnutrition in 2023 in the Horn region, in the Greater Horn. That is about 10.4 million, and that is a staggering figure,” stated Mr Aelbrecht.
He added, “What our colleagues are seeing in clinics and in hospitals since the beginning of this year are the highest level of severely malnourished children who are now coming to these facilities with medical complications since the crisis began three years ago.”
Echoing that alert, World Food Programme (WFP) senior emergency officer Dominique Ferretti said almost three years of drought had given way to rains and…