Four months into Somalia famine, IRC addressing urgent health needs in Mogadishu

The IRC is treating nearly 100 patients a day at its clinic in a camp in Mogadishu that shelters more than 17,000 Somalis who have been displaced by fighting and famine.  (Photo: IRC)

Four months into the famine crisis in Somalia, the International Rescue Committee is continuing to provide desperately needed health care to more than 40,000 people in Mogadishu, the Somali capital left in ruins by 21 years of civil war.  

The conflict devastated Somalia’s health system, and ongoing violence has prevented all but a few humanitarian organizations from stepping in to help meet basic health needs.  In Mogadishu, medical facilities have become increasingly strained as people who have fled fighting and the region’s worst drought in six decades stream into the capital from the countryside.

Although the famine has eased in some parts of the country, United Nations officials said today, deaths are likely to continue in other areas – including the crowded camps for the displaced in Mogadishu. 
 

“There is a serious gap in primary health services in Mogadishu,” said Prafulla Mishra, the Nairobi-based director of IRC programs in Somalia.  “The weak formal health system is unable to respond to the enormous need from the influx of people displaced by the famine and conflict.”

The IRC is treating nearly 100 patients a day at its clinic in a camp on the edge the city that shelters more than 17,000 displaced Somalis.  Doctors there say that poor access to clean water and sanitation has contributed to a marked increase in the number of cases they see of diarrhea, intestinal parasites, skin infections, upper respiratory infections and pneumonia. 

 

Three-year-old Hanad Abdi Amed arrived at the clinic two weeks ago with a severe cough and fever, too sick even to eat. Hanad’s mother, 35-year-old Mumina Mohamed Ali, said she was grateful to find help for her son in the camp. 

 

“I am so happy the IRC saved my child,” Ali said. “I did not know where to go before I brought him to this clinic.”

 

To help counter the spread of disease in the camps and surrounding neighborhoods, the IRC has partnered with a local organization to educate residents about health issues and good hygiene practices, as well as ways to treat diarrhea and other basic illnesses at home.

 

The IRC is also working to bolster the health care system in Mogadishu for the long term, renovating a clinic that had been damaged during the war and closed for two decades. When it reopens later this month the facility will serve some 60,000 uprooted Somalis and local residents.