The Standard Group Plc is a
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Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key
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Maryan Madey holds a malnourished child at a camp for the displaced on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. [AFP Photo]
At least 55,000 children in Somalia face severe acute malnutrition, as aid cuts force Save the Children, a global charity, to close its nutrition centers, the agency warned on Wednesday.
Save the Children said in a statement issued in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, that the children will lose access to its lifesaving nutrition services by June.
"It's frightening to imagine what the impact of these aid cuts will be on Somalia just a few months along the road, in a country where communities know all too well what extreme hunger, and even famine, feels like," said Save the Children's Country Director for Somalia Mohamud Mohamed Hassan.
According to the agency, the global aid cuts announced at the start of 2025 mean that about 27 percent of Save the Children-supported health and nutrition facilities in Somalia will stop services in June, putting the lives of at least 55,000 children who would normally use those programs at risk.
In addition to aid cuts, continued displacement due to attacks by armed groups and below-average rainfall are combining to push children deeper into a humanitarian emergency, said the aid agency.
Children are already being impacted, with 1.8 million children in Somalia expected to face acute malnutrition this year, according to data from the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, and 479,000 expected to face severe acute malnutrition, which, if not treated, can be deadly.
The charity said that Somalia's humanitarian response has been chronically underfunded, even before these latest aid cuts, and that hunger has remained stubbornly high due to recurrent climate shocks, such as below-average rainfall.
It also noted that the end of the rainy season in June is a time of year when hunger and malnutrition typically rise in Somalia, but aid cuts mean that 11 percent more children are expected to be severely malnourished than in 2024, while there will also be fewer facilities run by aid organizations to treat them.
The Standard Group Plc is a
multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper
print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key
influence in matters of national and international interest.
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