Which Child live and which Dies

  Famine in Somalia forces mother  to choose which children lives and which one will be left behind and dies.  A choice that no parent should have to make but they must, so that others will survive.  

Somalian mother Mumini Ibrahim looks at her dead seven month old baby Osman, as she holds his twin sister Katida in her hut at Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab.


    Parents fleeing the devastating famine on foot — sometimes with as many as seven children in tow — are having to make unimaginably cruel choices: Which children have the best chance to survive when food and water run low? Who should be left behind?

 Parents wait with their malnourished and dehydrated children in a corridor at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu
 


    Dr. John Kivelenge, a mental health officer for the International Rescue Committee at Dadaab emphasizes the extreme duress Somali mothers and fathers are facing.
'It is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. They can't sit down and wait to die together,' he said.
''But after a month, they will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, which means they will have flashbacks and nightmares.The picture of the children they abandoned behind will come back to them and haunt them,'' he said. ''They will also have poor sleep and social problems.''

Seven month old baby Osman is buried after he died the night before in Dadaab on the Kenyan/Somalian border.

     The United States estimates that more than 29,000 Somali children under age five have died in the famine in the last three months.
An unknown number too weak to walk farther have been abandoned on the sandy trek to help after food and water supplies ran out.

  A young boy plays in a children's grave yard at the Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab.

Right now 250 children are dying in Somalia every day. That's one little girl or boy dead every six minutes.

    If you want to help. Start doing your part, share and raise awareness. or visit the site for more info on how you can help them Click here..

 

Posted in: F.Y.I.,famine,Somalia