UN struggles to cope with developing Somali crisis

AN EXODUS of starving Somali refugees has left the United Nations struggling to cope with a developing humanitarian disaster.

More than ten million people face famine in the drought-striken Horn of Africa, a crisis worsened by renewed fighting in Somalia, the UN said.

Since the start of July alone, more than 11,000 people have fled Somalia to Ethiopia and Kenya, where 8,600 have arrived in recent days. Kenya's Dabaab camp is the world's biggest, containing 380,000 refugees.

"We're in a situation where we are struggling to keep pace with the sheer volume of arrivals at the moment," Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner of Refugees said after visiting Kenya.

Many Somalis are trying to escape heavy fighting between government forces and al-Shabaab rebels. Food prices that have quadrupled in recent months due to drought, he said.

"The prognosis looks very poor indeed at the moment. You have many cases we're seeing in which people arrive in such an emaciated state and young children in particular that they don't survive even after reaching these camps," he said.

The lives of half a million children in the region are at risk, the UN Children's Fund said last week.

In Somalia, child health is already among the worst in the world, according to the World Health Organisation. About one in 11 babies die before their first birthday and one in seven before their fifth birthday.

Outbreaks of measles and cholera have already been reported in Djibouti and Ethiopia, said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic. Cholera, endemic in Somalia, is feared to be spreading as refugees flock into the capital, Mogadishu.