1.4 million Somali children will starve, UNICEF reports

Hai Luong
By Hai Luong
May 2, 2017World News
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Nearly a million and a half children in Somalia will starve this year.

That is the latest estimate from UNICEF. The number is 50 percent higher than January’s projection.

“Acutely malnourished children, we expect there will be 1.4 million over the course of 2017,” said UNICEF spokeswoman, Marixie Mercado.

“That includes 275,000 severely malnourished. This is the most severe form of malnutrition, the kind that makes children nine times more likely to die of diseases such as cholera or measles or even malaria,” she said.

Mercado spoke at a press conference after returning from the city of Baidoa, Somalia, on May 2.

The rains have failed in Somalia three years running. The resulting drought is driving families from their farmlands.

They gather in refugee camps where clean water is scarce and disease spreads easily.

Simple diarrhea can kill a child in hours.

Death rates for cholera and diarrhea are already twice last year’s figure.

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