For three days, Halima Abdullahi Ibrahim carried her 3-year-old daughter from their village in Somalia to a hospital nearly 90 kilometers (56 miles) away.
The girl's body was swelling and she needed medical help unavailable closer to home.
When she finally reached Kismayo Referral Hospital, Halima's daughter, Asho Hassan Abdi, was taken to the stabilization center, a white-walled ward lined with metal-framed beds, some beneath mosquito nets.
Halima held Asho on her lap, the child wrapped in purple cloth, as a health worker examined her feet and lower legs.
They diagnosed her with edema, a symptom of severe acute malnutrition.
Asho is one child in a national emergency.
Some 1.92 million Somali children between the ages of 6 months and almost 5 years old are suffering from or are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition and need treatment over a one year period ending in June 2027, according to an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
That includes 433,000 children expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition, the form carrying the greatest risk of death.
More than half of Somalia’s projected malnutrition cases are concentrated in the south, where communities face disease outbreaks, food insecurity and limited access to health services, clean water and sanitation.
Expected flooding associated with El Niño could displace more families and make those services even harder to reach.
The hospital where Asho was being treated admitted 152 children with severe acute malnutrition in August, four of whom died, Jubbaland Health Minister Ismail Garas said.
And the crisis comes as humanitarian organizations have fewer resources to respond.
The AP reported in August that the World Food Program can provide only limited assistance despite the growing need.
Somalia’s emergency also reflects a wider retreat in humanitarian funding that is weakening efforts to fight hunger, disease and poverty....
