Andrew Harding reports on one family’s agonising loss in Somalia amid growing fears of a famine.
Hawa, seen here holding her daughter Ubah and with her son Abdiwali lying on the bed, says he had been growing weaker for weeks before they came to get helpAfter two days in a small Somali hospital, Abdiwali Abdi seemed to be groping his way towards some sort of recovery.
The district hospital in Dollow - a dusty little border town in south-western Somalia - has been quietly assisting children like Abdiwali for years. Funded by the UK government, and others, it has built up a network of community workers who provide basic medical support, not just in town, but deep into the contested countryside, where the militant Islamist group al-Shabab controls many villages.
The United Nations is warning that 6.7 million people will need food aid in Somalia in the coming months - about 40% of the population. Before this new drought, the family had been quite well off, with four children, 40 cows and a thatched home near the town of Qansax Dheere, 200km south of Dollow. "It's so sad and painful when you witness something that can be prevented and can be corrected very easily," said the hospital's head doctor, Ali Shueb.
And yet, just as another famine looms, the hospital has - perhaps temporarily - lost half its international funding as a result of delays caused by political upheavals in the capital, Mogadishu.
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