Here’s what we mean when we say we’re saving lives in Somalia.

A few months ago Deko Rable Rage – a 25-year-old mother in Somalia – noticed something was wrong with her son. “He stopped being cheerful and happy,” Deko recalls.

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“He [used to be] a jovial and playful child… I was worried.”

Deko could see her child growing thinner, and feared he would die of starvation.

The mother of three brought all of her children to an IRC-supported hospital. Her fears were valid: Deko’s youngest child, Abdi Ladif, was severely malnourished when he first arrived. Her other children were also at risk. “I have unconditional love for my kids,” she says, “even when they are sick I don’t leave their side. I become restless.”

At the hospital, Deko’s son was given therapeutic food and medicine to stop severe diarrhea. “I was told to give my child plenty of water and IRC was constantly following up on his health. ”

This summer, the IRC is ramping up our malnutrition efforts in Somalia to reach more children like Abdi Ladif. We are:

• Scaling up our health programming, which includes providing medicine, urgent medical care and ready-to-use therapeutic food such as Plumpy’Nut to malnourished children.

• Deploying our mobile medical treatment units to hard-to-reach regions where families have limited access to health care.

• Providing unconditional cash transfers to help families quickly get the essentials they need, including food for their children.

• Actively rehabilitating boreholes and water sources to help bring clean water to communities to prevent dehydration and disease.

These efforts could not come fast enough. The country is facing a severe drought that threatens to be worse than the pre-famine conditions of 2016-17. Nearly 1 million children are anticipated to be malnourished this year in Somalia.

When we say we are saving lives, we mean we are saving real children like Deko’s three boys. Thanks to swift action by the IRC and key follow ups, her boys are now nourished and back to their old selves. To learn more about our work in Somalia and see new photos of mothers and children we’ve recently supported, click here.

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This email is part of a 3-part series highlighting the IRC’s life-saving malnutrition work around the world. Stay tuned for more updates from Yemen and South Sudan.


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