Saudi, UNFPA team up against child mortality in Somalia

Mothers and children sit in the ICU ward at The Banadir Maternity and Children Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, on November 10, 2022. PHOTO | GUY PETERSON | AFP

By ABDULKADIR KHALIF

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The Saudi government and the UN reproductive health agency (UNFPA) will fund medical and hygiene services to improve the maternal and reproductive health of

communities in displaced camps in Somalia, following prolonged drought.

Under the programme launched by the UNFPA, the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KS Relief), Saudi government will fund antenatal care, postnatal care and other reproductive health services especially for women and girls.

A dispatch published by both the Saudi Embassy in Somalia and UNFPA says Riyadh will work with the UN agency to reach out to displaced communities where healthcare services are scarce or unavailable.

Read: UN chief urges 'immediate' funding for Horn of Africa

UNFPA Representative Niyi Ojuolape said programmes such as this “address the critical health needs of vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls affected by displacement and humanitarian crises.” 

Yaziid Hamoud, head of KS-Relief Somalia, stated, “The project will improve access to positive health services, maternal health, and the overall quality of vulnerable communities in six regions.” 

This project comes two months after Somalia’s Ministry of Health, World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund published a report suggesting that at least 43,000 people died in Somalia in 2022, a result of drought that has gone on since 2019. Somalia has one of the highest mortality rates in the world, reporting 112 deaths in every 1,000 live births, according to the World Bank

Read: Dying children reflect brutal toll of Somalia drought

In attendance at the launch in Mogadishu were Saudi ambassador to Somalia Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Mawlid, Sabaax Juneed, the envoy for the Arab League and Somalia’s Health Minister Ali Haji Adan as well as the chairman of the Somali National Disaster Management Agency Mohamud Moalim Abdulle.

About eight million people - or nearly half of the population – in Somalia were rendered needy after consecutive seasons of drought, and insecurity, forced communities out of homes in search of water and pasture. At least half of these were displaced.