Somalia

Interview with Mohamed Somane Abdi, MSF Assistant Project Coordinator, Marere, southern Somalia.

The drought has affected us badly. Marere used to be a farming area but there has been no harvest now for more than two years. You can see the effects of the drought right here in our hospital, where numbers of patients in our inpatient feeding centre have doubled.

Last night, 80 under-fives with severe malnutrition stayed in the hospital, while we were treating a further 443 children as outpatients.

"Hunger and destitution..."

This week, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has sent medical teams and four charter planes carrying 55 tons of medical equipment, medicines and therapeutic food to Mogadishu in response to the crisis in Somalia. In the past weeks, an estimated 100 000 people have fled from south and central Somalia to the capital to seek assistance. They are settling in numerous camps in and around Mogadishu, with little or no access to health care.