SOMALIA: 26 ‘starve to death’ in drought

At least 26 people have died of starvation in Somalia’s southern region of Jubaland, the government-owned Radio Mogadishu website has reported. It quoted regional interior minister and drought committee chairman Abdirahman Mohamed Hussein as saying the deaths were in the past 36 hours. He appealed for emergency aid to curb hunger, Radio Mogadishu reported. UN […]

At least 26 people have died of starvation in Somalia’s southern region of Jubaland, the government-owned Radio Mogadishu website has reported.
It quoted regional interior minister and drought committee chairman Abdirahman Mohamed Hussein as saying the deaths were in the past 36 hours.
He appealed for emergency aid to curb hunger, Radio Mogadishu reported.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who was in Somalia this month, said nearly six million needed aid there.
The country has been gripped by a devastating drought that has killed livestock and caused rivers and wells to dry up and crops to fail.
Hundreds of families have now left Jubaland and sought refuge in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
Ibrahim Abdow, 62, told Reuters news agency he had travelled by donkey and bus out of Jubaland.
“Our cows and farms have perished. The rivers have dried and there are no wells there,” he told the news agency, while camping in the outskirts of Mogadishu.