Funding to tackle acute malnutrition in parts of Somalia has dropped by more than 80% this year, Médecins Sans Frontières said on Tuesday, even though one in every four children screened in displacement camps in the southwest is severely malnourished.
MSF Health Adviser Mitchell Sangma said the United States had cut its support to aid agencies in the country from $70 million last year to no funding this year, leaving
aid groups struggling to respond as needs rise. Other Western donors have also cut funding.
"This year we have admitted 22,000 nutrition cases, more than 80% higher than last year. When we need this massive scale-up in intervention measures, we are seeing less interest from donor support," Sangma said.
At the Elbet 1 camp, a collection of makeshift tents constructed by a patchwork of tarpaulins in the southwestern town of Baidoa, parents bring their children to a clinic under a corrugated iron roof. They are weighed and measured for height and the thickness of their arms, which is an indicator of malnutrition.
A July survey by MSF of 888 households in 14 displacement sites in Baidoa found that one in four children was severely malnourished. One third of families said they were surviving on one meal a day, while only 2% could afford three meals.
