Northeastern villages facing starvation

Thousands of villagers in Mudug region of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, are on the brink of starvation due to severe food and water shortages, local officials said.

The high level of inflation is contributing to the suffering of the people. "Everything costs three to four times more than it did a year ago," said Dahir Abdulkadir, the governor of Mudug. "This is disastrous for people whose only source of income [livestock] is no more."

"People in the villages of Beer Dhagahtuur, Baadweyn and others nearby, all part of Harfo district, are facing the worst food crisis in a very long time," Bashir Mahamud Mire, the deputy governor of Mudug region, who recently visited the area, told IRIN.

He said severe drought, loss of livestock - the economic mainstay of the area - and hyperinflation had pushed many families to the brink of starvation. "These are people who depend on their livestock and it is dead or is so weakened it is of little use," added Mire.

Abdulkadir said the plight of the villagers was a "reflection of a broader humanitarian problem faced by people of this region both in rural and urban areas". The area has endured three years of little or no rains.

An estimated 3,000 families (about 18,000 people) live in the area. Abdulkadir told IRIN of reports from other villages on the verge of catastrophe through hunger.

"There are families that have lost everything," he added, appealing to aid agencies to help the people "before it is too late".

Mire, who oversees the health and social services of the region, told IRIN that lack of food had weakened the people and was having a negative impact on their health.

He witnessed about 80 people, most of them children, who were also suffering from watery diarrhoea.

ah/mw