In Somalia, Climate change and Conflict are driving Mothers to risk it all for their starving Children

Baidoa:-Somalia is facing poverty and hunger on an unprecedented scale. Every minute of every day, another child in the East African nation is admitted to a hospital suffering from malnutrition, Crippling drought and a 20-year insurgency by al Qaeda-linked militants are the two main factors driving the crisis. The United Nations Children’s Fund says more than 500,000 kids could die by the middle of this year unless urgent action is taken.

Already, many of the children being admitted to Somalia’s hospitals don’t make it. Earlier this year we witnessed first-hand the pain of doctors, nurses and parents who didn’t have enough time to save tiny lives destroyed by hunger.

Desperation has prompted thousands of people to flee their homes in the south of the country, and what used to be barren land in the Baidoa region has become a refuge for those fleeing climate change and conflict. Every day, more of the depleted, the desperate and the near-dying arrive, most of them on foot, and many of them mothers risking everything for their starving children.

More than two years of drought has left southern Somalia desolate, and the villagers who lived there with a stark choice. Stay and face starvation, or flee and risk getting caught up in the fighting between government forces and one of al Qaeda’s deadliest affiliates, al-Shabaab.