Nutritional problems in Imi, Gudis

The food crisis in the Ogaden Region has prompted Medecins sans frontieres (MSF) to set up a new therapeutic feeding centre in Imi East, about 200 km northwest of the regional capital Gode, where around 3,500 inhabitants and displaced people are living, the health NGO said in a statement on Thursday. A rapid nutritional assessment had revealed global malnutrition rates of 42 percent, including 23 percent severe malnutrition, in Gudis - 50 km to the east of Imi - among children under five years, it said. In Denan, 50 km north of Gode, there were 556 children under five registered for intensive, therapeutic feeding and 1,612 more registered for a supplementary feeding programme, the agency said. A mission to Imi/Gudis at the start of May had found 2,000 to 3,000 displaced people in a population of about 10,000. The displaced, nomads for the most part, had been collecting in the area for the last six months or so having lost their cattle, and a majority were women and children, MSF said. The local and displaced population were suffering as a result of recent rain and flooding, while there was also an increasing risk of diarrhoea, infectious diseases and malaria in the coming weeks and months, it added. Up to 180,000 people in the Gode region were completely dependent on humanitarian aid, according to estimates quoted by MSF. In the northern region of Tigray, meanwhile, Ethiopia’s hostilities with Eritrea meant MSF no longer had access to its surgical project at Adigrat but it was still targeting 75,000 IDPs for sanitation facilities and hygiene information, it said.