At a glance: Djibouti

Feeding centres aim to alleviate chronic malnutrition in drought-affected Djibouti

© UNICEF Djibouti/2011/Mekki

A mother sits with her child in a therapeutic feeding centre in Balbala, in the outskirts of Djibouti City, Djibouti. Mothers bring their malnourished children to the centre for daily doses of ready-to-use therapeutic food.

By Najwa Mekki

BALBALA, Djibouti, 17 August 2011 – At the therapeutic feeding centre of Balbala, on the outskirts of the capital city Djibouti , Abdelfattah, 20-months-old, stares suspiciously at the visitors who have just walked in.

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As he swallows a spoonful of what looks like thin sorghum paste that his mother is slowly feeding him, Abdelfattah seems a picture of perfect health. Yet, just a month and a half ago, his mother didn’t think he was going to make it.

Life-saving feeding centres

Abdelfattah was referred to the UNICEF-supported feeding centre when he was diagnosed with malnutrition in the neighbourhood’s health clinic. For the past six weeks, his mother Asha, a Somali refugee who has lived in Djibouti for four years, has brought him to the centre daily to feed him a fortified porridge of wheat soy blend, a nutritional supplement for children with malnutrition.

The centre usually receives up to 30 children a month, but numbers shot up during the month of July, with 150 children receiving the life-saving supplement. Some of them are children of Somali refugees who have been living in Djibouti for years, others are children from the host community of Balbala.

Going door-to-door in the community to identify cases of malnutrition, staff at the centre has been urging families to bring their children for treatment.

Urgent assistance needed

More than two million children in the Horn of Africa are acutely malnourished.  In Djibouti, a country of less than 865,000 people , malnutrition is chronic , but has reached particularly high levels this year. In the poorer neighbourhoods of the main urban areas, rates of moderate malnutrition tripled from May 2010 and May 2011, affecting approximately 26,000 children.
 
“A combination of high food and fuel prices, recurrent drought and chronic water shortages is clearly exacting a heavy toll on children’s health and well-being,” said Josefa Marrato, UNICEF Representative in Djibouti.

Somali refugees in Djibouti, whether they’re long-term residents or new arrivals, are some of the most affected. At the Ali Addeh refugee camp , nearly three hours by road from the capital, some 17,000 refugees have sought refuge from the violence and drought wrecking their homeland.  About 20 per cent of the camp population are children under five.

© UNICEF Djibouti/2011/Mekki

Mohamed Dhaher Hussein, 8, is a Somali refugee who has been living in Ali Addeh refugee camp in Djibouti for three years. . He is a grade one student in the camp’s school and wants to go back to Somalia and work as a teacher when he grows up.

Numbers keep increasing

Mohamed Dhaher Hussein, 8, has been living in the camp for three years, along with his parents and seven siblings. He goes to the camp school, but now during the summer break, he spends his time running around and playing with his friends.

“I want to be a teacher when I grow up,” he said. “I want to teach back home in Somalia.”

But for the thousands of Somalis in Djibouti, and elsewhere, there will no homecoming any time soon. Conflict, the drought and now famine are pushing more and more Somalis away from their homes – to Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

At the Ali Addeh camp, their numbers keep increasing – from more than 400 new arrivals in June, to over 800 in July, and nearly 600 during the first half of August.  As more and more people keep coming in, water supplies are running low and malnutrition rates are going up.

UNICEF provides support

UNICEF is supporting humanitarian interventions in the camp, by increasing the water capacity to meet additional needs, and supplying the ready to eat therapeutic food necessary for children with malnutrition.  

Beyond the camp, UNICEF is distributing emergency supplies for the treatment of malnutrition and is increasing access to safe drinking water through water trucking.

UNICEF has also extended an ongoing Conditional Cash Transfer programme to increase livelihood support to 217 households across Djibouti Ville for a three-month period.  Under the programme, families with orphans and vulnerable children receive direct cash assistance in return for making sure their children go to school and are fed at least two meals a day.