Kismayo Hospital: A lifeline for malnourished children in Jubbaland

The last couple of weeks have been harrowing for Hamdi Mohamed. Two of her children have become acutely malnourished due to a catastrophic drought that has affected the whole of Somalia.

Desperate to save her children, Mohamed fled her hometown in Jilib – an Al-Shabaab stronghold in Somalia’s Middle Juba province – with her children in the hope that she can find them treatment at the Kismayo General Hospital. The hospital is the largest in Kismayo, a port city in the southern Lower Juba province.

“My children were suffering from acute malnutrition, and I brought them here [to Kismayo] from Jilib for treatment,” Mohamed told Somali Signal.

Though she is delighted that her children’s health condition is improving, she is still worried about their future.

“I do not know what will happen to them if we return to Jilib,” the distraught mother said. “I do not have anything to feed them, and they might become malnourished again.”

Kismayo is one of Somalia’s largest cities. The city has slowly been recovering from years of civil war and is relatively peaceful. It currently serves as the administrative capital of Jubbaland state, one of Somalia’s six federal member states.

However, a significant number of neighboring towns and villages remain under the control of Al-Shabaab terrorist group, a situation that has caused to hamper the delivery of healthcare and other public services. As such, thousands of Somalis in the surrounding towns flock into Kismayo in search of basic services.

Speaking to Somali Signal, Dr. Faysal Adam, the head of the hospital’s malnutrition department, said most patients in the hospital were children who were acutely malnourished.

“Due to severe drought across the country, communities in remote towns and villages tend to suffer the most,” Adam said.

While reaffirming the hospital’s readiness to welcome all patients, Adam warned that the scarcity of medical facilities and resources makes it difficult to save every child.

For his part, the hospital’s general director, Dr. Arab Ibrahim, called for more support to boost the hospital’s capacity to deliver healthcare services.

The Horn of Africa region is experiencing its worst drought in more than 40 years. In August, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said more than 755,000 Somalis have been internally displaced this year, bringing the total number to 1 million people since drought began in January 2021.

Millions in the country are in dire need of humanitarian aid as famine looms in the country. Al-Shabaab’s control of significant parts of the country is further complicating humanitarian delivery in Somalia.

A military offensive launched recently by the Somali National Army against the terror group with the support of local militias has led to liberating a string of towns and villages in South and Central Somalia, and the government has promised to urgently facilitate aid delivery in those areas.