Drought, disease and conflict: Somalia is fighting a battle on all fronts
Nagib’s small feet poke out from a bundled blue shroud. His body is far too small for his three years of age.
He is shrunken by malnutrition and marked by the measles that eventually took his short life.
Nagib is carried out of the emergency care ward in Baidoa and into a white van as his mother sobs quietly in the backseat.
One more preventable death in the Bay area of southwest Somalia where prolonged drought, violence and skyrocketing food prices are pushing the population into famine.
A mother and her malnourished baby
Not far from Baidoa, al Qaeda-linked terror group al Shabaab is fighting to maintain its territory. They stalk vulnerable rural communities and collect taxes from farmers in the form of livestock.
In a nearby town, al Shabaab fighters recently ambushed a group of men building a well and burned them alive.
Those who manage to escape still suffer long-term consequences. Nagib’s family were unable to vaccinate him while living under al Shabaab. When malnutrition hit, his young body could not fight off a deadly case of measles.
Around 260,000 people lost their lives when famine was declared in Somalia in 2011. More than half of them were children. Today, nearly seven million people are facing extreme hunger and doctors are preparing for another humanitarian catastrophe.
Thousands of people have fled their homes and farms
“If it continues like this it will be worse than the last one. It will be the serious one,” said Dr Mohamed Osman Weheliye, an emergency care doctor at the Sahal Macalin Stabilisation Centre supported by Save the Children in Baidoa.
“People are going to die because of the long drought.”
Four failed rainy seasons have destroyed food security across the country and forecasts predict that this cycle of rain is unlikely to bring the moisture needed to replenish farms and grazing land.
Children contract other diseases easily when malnourished
This is the worst drought the region has seen in 40 years.
Nearly a million people have already been displaced and more than half of them have come to Baidoa, where camps keep growing.
Make-shift dome huts are cropping up all over the city as 4,000 new families arrive every week – fleeing their villages in search of food, water and safety.
The refugee camps as seen from above
“Drought brought me here. I lost my livestock. My farm is gone,” said Sudano Ali.
Sudano’s 10-month-old son Usama is assessed, weighed and measured at the stabilisation centre.
He is found to be acutely malnourished and medical staff are concerned by signs of something more – a persistent cough. Dr Weheliye suspects that baby Usama has pneumonia.
“It is the diseases that come with hunger,” says Dr Weheliye.
Hunger is just the start of suffering for these children.
Their weakened immune systems are unable to fight off the illness that are rife in the camps they now call home.
Drought, disease and conflict – a battle on all fronts.
A new aid system has opened its first distribution centres in Gaza, according to a US-backed organisation dealing with supplies.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began its operations in the territory on Monday, following the resignation of its director, Jake Wood, over its independence.
Gaza’s 2.3m population has been pushed towards famine by Israel’s almost three-month blockade.
Boxes of aid to be distributed across Rafah. Pic: Reuters.
The GHF said lorryloads of food – it did not say how many – had been delivered to its hubs, and distribution to Palestinians had begun.
“More trucks with aid will be delivered tomorrow, with the flow of aid increasing each day,” it said in a statement.
The controversial group, backed by Israel and the United States, has been rejected by the United Nations and other aid groups.
Follow the latest developments in our live blog
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
People line up for food in Gaza
UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF.
They claim Israel is weaponising food, and the new distribution system will be ineffective and lead to further displacement of Palestinians.
They also argue the GHF will fail to meet local needs, and violates humanitarian principles that prohibit a warring party from controlling humanitarian assistance.
In the meantime, scores of Palestinians in Gaza, like Islam Abu Taima, have resorted to searching through rubbish to find food.
Palestinians are having to search through rubbish to find food
She found a small pile of cooked rice, scraps of bread, and a box with a few pieces of cheese inside it – which she said she will serve to her five children.
“We’re dying of hunger,” she told the Associated Press news agency.
“If we don’t eat, we’ll die.”
Islam Abu Taeima finds a piece of bread in a pile of rubbish in Gaza City. Pic: AP.
It is unclear how many of the GHF’s aid trucks will enter Gaza.
It claims it will reach one million Palestinians by the end of the week.
There are questions, however, over who is funding it and how it will work.
Trucks transporting aid for Palestinians in Rafah. Pic: Reuters.
It has been set up as part of an Israeli plan – rather than a UN distribution effort.
Israel, which suggested a similar plan earlier this year, has said it will not be involved in distributing the aid but supported the plan and would provide security.
It says aid deliveries into Gaza are taken by Hamas instead of going to civilians.
Aid groups, however, say there is no evidence of this happening on a systemic basis.
Read more from Sky News:
Russia accuses Trump of ’emotional overload’
King urged to seek Canadian apology
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Israel began to allow a limited amount of food into Gaza last week – after a blockade that prevented food, medicine, fuel and other goods from entering the Palestinian enclave.
A letter has been signed by hundreds of judges and lawyers calling on the UK government to impose trade sanctions on Israel.
It also calls for Israeli ministers to be sanctioned and the suspension of Israel from the UN over “serious breaches of international law”.
“Genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza or that, at a minimum, there is a serious risk of genocide,” the letter says.
The Israeli government has repeatedly dismissed allegations of genocide in Gaza.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
At least 31 dead after school attack
More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its ground invasion of Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, following the deadly attacks by the militant group on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
The health ministry’s figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters in Gaza.
King Charles and Queen Camilla are being urged to use their visit to Canada to seek an apology for the abuse of British children.
Campaigners have called on them to pursue an apology for the “dire circumstances” suffered by so-called “Home Children” over decades.
More than 100,000 were shipped from orphan homes in the UK to Canada between 1869 and 1948 with many used as cheap labour, typically as farm workers and domestic servants. Many were subject to mistreatment and abuse.
Canada has resisted calls to follow the UK and Australia in apologising for its involvement in child migrant schemes.
King Charles and Mark Carney on Monday. Pic: PA
Campaigners for the Home Children say the royal visit presents a “great opportunity” for a change of heart.
“I would ask that King Charles uses his trip to request an apology,” John Jefkins told Sky News.
John’s father Bert was one of 115,000 British Home Children transported to Canada, arriving in 1914 with his brother Reggie.
“It’s really important for the Home Children themselves and for their descendants,” John said.
“It’s something we deserve and it’s really important for the healing process, as well as building awareness of the experience of the Home Children.
“They were treated very, very badly by the Canadian government at the time. A lot of them were abused, they were treated horribly. They were second-class citizens, lepers in a way.”
More on this story:
The forgotten legacy of British children sent to Canada
John Jefkins
John added: “I think the King’s visit provides a great opportunity to reinforce our campaign and to pursue an apology because we’re part of the Commonwealth and King Charles is a new Head of the Commonwealth meeting a new Canadian prime minister. It’s a chance, for both, to look at the situation with a fresh eye.
“There’s much about this visit that looks on our sovereignty and who we are as Canadians, rightly so.
“I think it’s also right that in contemplating the country we built, we focus on the people who built it, many in the most trying of circumstances.”
The issue was addressed by the then Prince of Wales during a tour of Canada in May 2022. He said at the time: “We must find new ways to come to terms with the darker and more difficult aspects of the past.”
More from Sky News:
Watch: Why is King’s Canada visit so important?
Analysis: King is ‘piggy in the middle’ in Canada-US stand-off
King Charles and Queen Camilla are on a two-day visit to Canada.
On Tuesday, the King will deliver the Speech from the Throne to open the 45th session of Canada’s parliament.
Camilla was made Patron of Barnardo’s in 2016. The organisation sent tens of thousands of Home Children to Canada. She took on the role, having served as president since 2007.
Buckingham Palace has been contacted for comment.
A spokesperson for the Canadian government said: “The government of Canada is committed to keeping the memory of the British Home Children alive.
“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada deeply regrets this unjust and discriminatory policy, which was in place from 1869 to 1948. Such an approach would have no place in modern Canada, and we must learn from past mistakes.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway