UN agency warns of Somalia hunger deaths
by The Daily Eye Team May 30 2014, 12:25 pm Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 50 secsUNICEF says 200,000 children under the age of five could die by the end of the year unless emergency funds are received. About 200,000 children under the age of five could die from severe malnutrition in Somalia by the end of the year, unless the United Nations receives emergency funds to stave off mass hunger, UN officials have said. Only $15m has been received against the appeal by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to donor states for $150m to provide vital health services to more than three million women and children in the Horn of Africa nation this year, the agency said on Tuesday. “If funding is not received immediately, UNICEF will have to suspend essential life-saving health services within one month,” said the agency spokesman Christophe Boulierac in Geneva’ “Somalia has 200,000 children under the age of five at risk of death (by) the end of the year 2014 from severe malnutrition if they do not receive life-saving therapeutic assistance.”