Student nurses sent to drought-hit south

Two hundred Ethiopian nursing students were being deployed on Monday to drought-stricken southern Ethiopia under an emergency operation organised by the United Nations. The Ethiopian students will work at emergency feeding centres where children on the brink of death from starvation can receive life-saving treatment, the UN announced. “The UN is committed to do our best to ensure our investments are not just providing for today, but can contribute to longer-term solutions,” said UN Country Representative Sam Nyambi. The scheme, the first of its kind in the country, will see the trainee nurses spend three months of their college break working in the hot spots in the south. The Southern Nations and Nationalities People’s Region (SNNPR) has been one of the hardest-hit by the current food emergency. According to the UN’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the nutritional crisis in Ethiopia has worsened, with some 60,000 children countrywide suffering from acute malnutrition. A UNICEF spokeswoman told IRIN on Monday that the nurses will also help tackle health issues such as malaria – one of the country’s biggest killers. The students have been undergoing a vigorous two-day training programme on treating acute malnutrition. UNICEF believes the training will also help boost the knowledge of the trainee nurses who will then be able to tackle any future food emergencies.