Somali residents flee Hiran region

Published on Thursday 10th July 2008

Somalia: Increased maneuver fighting inside Somalia's Hiran region, has led to another exodus of the population, adding to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) who have already fled and those fled to the neighboring middle Shabelle region.

West of Hiran, on the road to Middle, The population is facing unacceptable sanitary conditions and their vulnerability has only increased in the face of months-long food shortages. In Jowhar town the provincial capital of Middle Shabelle region, a large IDPs are linked to precarious living conditions: severe malnutrition, diarrhea, and acute respiratory tract infections.

Children arriving from Beledweyne town, especially those under five years of age, are extremely weak.

In the past two weeks, more than 250 severely malnourished children, including 80 who had to be hospitalized in intensive care, were admitted to Jowhar town’s hospital Faced with this deteriorating situation.

Mortality rates are extremely worrying. In Jowhar, a camp with 1,000 IDPs, where some humanitarian efforts are ongoing, the mortality rate of children under five is more than twice the emergency threshold: 4.2 deaths per 10,000 people per day.

According to a retrospective mortality survey conducted by Local doctors Diarrhea is the main cause of death in the camp (over 50 percent) due to disastrous sanitary conditions.

Needs for water, food, shelter, and medical care are rapidly increasing. However, increasing humanitarian assistance is extremely difficult in this conflict. Despite the mobilization of international aid over the past weeks, it is still largely inadequate.

Living conditions in the estimated 100 improvised camps along the two regions, axis are significantly below commonly accepted standards for emergency humanitarian assistance, and the risk of epidemic outbreaks is high.

The number of IDPs is increasing every day. Without a significant increase in neutral and independent assistance, this emergency situation could deteriorate even further.