Concern over high child mortality in Somali region

The death rate from disease among young children in a remote pocket of Ethiopia's Somali region has reached crisis point, the global charity Save the Children UK (SCF-UK) warned on Tuesday. It called for immediate medical intervention in Gashamo district, where as many as 18 children in a population of 14,000 were dying each week from diarrhoea. Nutritionist Hassan Taifour, who carried out the survey, told IRIN that one in three children was affected. "The situation there is critical," said Taifour, one of SCF-UK's emergency response personnel. He said his team had seen fresh graves as well as children being taken for burial. According to accepted international guidelines, an under-five mortality rate above two out of 10,000 per day should be treated as an emergency. Statistics provided by SCF-UK showed the daily death rate had reached 4.87 per 10,000 in Gashamo. At a recent government-led Emergency Nutrition Coordination Unit meeting in Addis Ababa, aid agencies noted that mortality rates there were among the "highest ever" seen. SCF-UK's malnutrition rapid response teams were called in by the government's Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC) to evaluate the situation, and their preliminary findings indicated a crisis. The children's agency called for mobile clinics to treat the sick, with clean water and food to be trucked in. "The main problem is the lack of [clean] water - the water that is there is contaminated," Taifour explained. "The water problem is causing a lot of diarrhoea, which is causing more deaths. In addition to that there are food shortages." Poor health facilities in the region are an added complication - there is only one nurse for 14,000 people in Gashamo, while medicines are virtually non-existent. Traditional healers usually treat most children who fall ill. According to the DPPC, food and specialised high-energy rations have been dispatched to the region. Officials of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Addis Ababa told IRIN on Tuesday they had sent food aid monitors to the area to check on distributions, and ongoing food supplies were being provided to families in need. Taifour said the situation had grown worse in recent years, with communities being hit by continual droughts and their livestock growing weaker.