Bowden said the rates of malnutrition were "amazingly high," pointing out that up to 50 per cent of the child population suffers from acute malnutrition. He acknowledged that malnutrition rates had begun to drop, but insisted that the crisis was likely to continue for the next six or seven months, the BBC said. Fortunately, they've started to come down across the board, but that does mean that there will have been a very high mortality, the BBC cited Bowden.
Somalia has not had a functioning central government for more than 20 years and has been torn apart by fighting between militias. Although $1.3 billion (about FCFA 763 billion) worth of aid has been poured into the country, the BBC says the scale of the suffering is immense. Last year, tens of thousands of Somalis fled rural areas - many over the borders to Ethiopia and Kenya - in search of food. The UN estimates that a total of 1.5 million people have been displaced by the crisis.
The food crisis was declared in the county six months ago and levels of need are expected to remain high until July or August 2012. The UN is calling for additional funds to replenish flocks of sheep, goats and camels so that people can re-build their lives. Aid agencies have warned in recent months that conflict was jeopardising the aid effort, with Kenyan troops crossing into the country to fight al-Shabab militants it blames for a spate of kidnappings. Al-Shabab controls much of central and southern Somalia, and has banned many Western aid agencies from its territory.
Last September, the UN warned that famine in Somalia had spread to engulf three quarters of the country with four million people then going hungry. The war-ravaged country was officially declared a famine zone in July 2011. It is at the centre of the worst famine to hit the entire Horn of Africa in 20 years.
