The plight of Somali children, whose families are fleeing the country’s ongoing 20 year conflict and continuing drought, attempting to reach refugee camps in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, is ringing alarm bells at the United Nations. Somali children are dying in great numbers- aid workers have begun to discover that many are unable to survive the treacherous journey to the overrun border camps. Those children who are lucky enough to survive the trek are all too often frail and hungry. According to the UN refugee agency, their death is barely preventable. More than 50 percent of Somali children who arrive in Ethiopia are seriously malnourished, while this rate is lower among those fleeing to Kenya, at 30 to 40 percent it equally worrying.
“It’s so extreme. Our people are saying they’ve never seen anything like it” said UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming at the press briefing on 5 July 2011 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
Somali refugees are pouring into Kenya and Ethiopia in increasingly high numbers. In June alone, 54,000 people fled across the two borders, three times the number of people who fled in May, and the UNHCR estimates that a quarter of Somalia’s 7.5 million population is now either internally displaced or living outside the country as refugees (UNHCR).
Sadly Somalia is a country all too often forgotten in the shadows, a precedent that seems unlikely to change as the country’s children continue to suffer. While the UN’s recent outcry is bringing the plight of Somalia’s children into international focus, it remains painfully clear that when we look around to see whose eyes are watching, far too few cast a glance in the direction of country’s children.
Please see my previous posts: When will eye’s of hope cast a glance at Somalia?, from February 11th, 2010; Will we remember Somalia?, from July 14th, 2009; and Have We Forgotten Somalia?, from November 2, 2008.