Hundreds of children have already died in nutrition centres across Somalia, the UN children's agency (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, a day after the global body warned that parts of Somalia will be hit by famine in the coming months.
The Horn of Africa region is on track for a fifth consecutive failed rainy season. A famine in 2011 in Somalia claimed more than a quarter of a million lives, most of them children, reports Reuters.
"Some 730 children have been reported to have died in food and nutrition centres across the country between January and July this year but the numbers could be more as many deaths go unreported," UNICEF Somalia representative Wafaa Saeed told a Geneva press briefing.
The centres are for children with severe acute malnutrition as well as other complications such as measles, cholera or malaria and are considered just a snapshot of the situation across the country.
"We don't know the full picture. I have met many, many families whose children have died along the way (to centres)" said Victor Chinyama, UNICEF spokesperson in Mogadishu.
UNICEF said that disease outbreaks were increasing among children, with some 13,000 suspected measles cases reported in recent months of which 78 per cent were children under five.
Funding for Somalia has increased in recent weeks and the United Nations' $1.46 billion appeal is now 67 per cent funded. But aid officials warned that it had come very late and that more was needed.
"We are going to be witnessing the death of children on an unimaginable scale if we don’t act fast," said Audrey Crawford, Somalia's country director at the Danish Refugee Council.