‘We buried him and kept walking’: Children die as Somalis flee hunger

Malnutrition has killed at least 448 children in Somalia this year amid severe drought

DOOLOW (Somalia) • When her crops failed and her parched goats died, Ms Hirsiyo Mohamed left her home in south-western Somalia, carrying and coaxing three of her eight children on the long walk across a bare and dusty landscape in temperatures nudging 38 deg C.

Along the way, her 3½-year-old son, Adan, tugged at her robe, begging for food and water. But there was none to give, she said, and he died. “We buried him, and kept walking.”

They reached an aid camp in the town of Doolow after four days, but her malnourished eight-year-old daughter, Habiba, soon contracted whooping cough and died, she said.

Sitting in her makeshift tent last month, holding her 2½-year-old daughter, Maryam, in her lap, she said: “This drought has finished us.”

The worst drought in four decades is imperilling lives across the Horn of Africa, with up to 20 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia facing the risk of starvation by the end of this year, according to the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is exacerbating the situation, cutting off most of the wheat imports that Somalia depends on, and sharply increasing the prices of fuel, food and fertiliser.