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Paradoxically, the first observation made by our teams in Mogadishu is that malnutrition
is not the most pressing medical issue today. There are other medical priorities such as
treating cholera and measles, or vaccinating against measles.
Access to water is also a problem and so we need to organise the distribution of clean
water. An additional problem is shelter, so we’ve
set distributions of non-food items in an attempt to improve the living conditions of
the displaced people.
Somali refugees head for Liben, the camp on the Ethiopian border. More than
20,000 people arrived in July, bringing the number of refugees in this vast series of
camps to around 118,000. When they arrive at the camp, more than half
of children under the age of 5 years are suffering from malnutrition - MSF teams are currently
treating approximately 9500 children in their nutritional program.
A measles vaccination campaign targeting children under 15 years of age is also under way.
Every day, over a thousand Somali refugees arrive at Dadaab in eastern Kenya.
With nearly 400,000 people seeking refuge here, the camp continues to over-spill into
the surrounding area. New arrivals settling in the outskirts of the camp are particularly
vulnerable. MSF is working at several sites in the camp
and is also scaling up activities on the Somali border, where teams provide primary health
care to families before they embark on the final 80 kilometres to Dadaab.