Thursday 24 Jully 2025 {HMC} Marwo Abdikarim feared the worst. Her 11-month-old baby boy, Ahmed Hussein, was fading away,quiet and limp. With no nearby health facilities in her village in Jilib, southern Somalia, the mother of two had no option but to travel a gruelling 120km journey through muddy roads and numerouscheckpoints to reach the stabilization centre at the Kismayo General Hospital.
or mothers like Marwo who reside in rural Somalia, accessing health care can take days. It
sometimes involves wading through impassable roads while navigating territories controlled by different authorities all in the hope of saving the lives of their loved ones.
When they arrived at the center, Ahmed’s body was shutting down due to severe acute malnutrition (SAM). His case is one of the 479,000 Somali children under the age of five who are projected to suffer from the disease in 2025, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis. Stabilization centers like the one at Kismayo General Hospital, which is supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), provide life-saving treatment for children like Ahmed who are critical and have developed medical complications brought on by hunger.
Admissions at the therapeutic feeding centre have surged in recent months. In April, the number of admissions doubled compared to March, and by May, 277 critically ill children were admitted, the highest admission in one month since the devastating drought in 2023.
This worrying trend is unfolding against a background of intensifying conflict that is triggering waves of displacement, and a cycle of floods and droughts that are pushing families deeper into hunger.
Farhiyo Hassan, a mother of nine living in an IDP camp in the outskirts of Kismayo, used to
rely on the clinic for peanut paste, an essential part of treatment for children suffering from
malnutrition.
“On my next visit, they told me there was no more peanut paste. Since then, we’ve never received any peanut paste anymore.”
As more families are rushing to seek specialized care, clinics that once served as the first port of call for mothers with ailing children in need of nutritional services are shutting down due to funding gaps.
With fewer services available- even in town centres- children are arriving weaker, sicker, their bodies slipping from moderate to severe acute malnutrition before they can access basic, early medical treatment.
The facility at Kismayo saw a near 70% increase in number of patients admitted since the beginning of the year, compared to the previous five months. Similarly, outpatient nutrition clinics run by the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS) are also reporting a sharp rise in mothers seeking treatment for their malnourished children.
Yet preventative nutrition programmes are dwindling due to funding gaps- depriving vulnerable families like Farihiyo’s of critical care.
Against All Odds The treatment offered at the clinics is a lifeline for vulnerable communities. Children, the first to weaken when there is no food, also respond quickly with to medical and nutritional treatment.
“When I brought her, her eyes were dark, and she was weak. By midday, she was conscious, trying to sit, and even playing,” says Farhiyo of her daughter, Nimco, who was showing signs of improvement hours after arriving at the centre.
Recovery typically takes 7 to 14 days, with nutrient-laden therapeutic milk adjusted at different stages of treatment. Mothers and guardians, who stay with the children during admission also receive vital hygiene training, breastfeeding advice, and counselling on proper nutrition, equipping them to protect their children long after discharge.
Both the SRCS -run outpatient nutrition clinics and the stabilization centre at the Kismayo General Hospital which serves the most critical cases are vital in providing ongoing care for mothers and children. Both facilities provide free medical services, and their complementary levels of care help stem the spread of malnutrition problem in Somalia.
“They gave him medicine when I arrived. They gave him milk. Thank God, he is fine now. I didn’t think he would make it,” Marwo recounts with relief.
UPDATE: At the time of this publication, Ahmed and Nimco have been back home for over two weeks, with their other siblings, healthy!
