The tragic situation caused by the famine is being further aggravated by the little help coming from outside, said the organization.

Secretary-General Adnan bin Khalil Basha reiterated that IIROSA would continue its humanitarian and relief efforts in the country, where famine is threatening about 4 million people.

Basha warned against the spreading of the famine to other parts of the country and urged the rest of the world as well as humanitarian, relief and charity organizations to quickly provide help to the Somali people.

“The world should move quickly to help the people of Somalia before the disaster snowballs, becomes difficult to contain and spreads to neighboring countries including Kenya, where more than 400,000 Somali immigrants have sought refuge looking for food and water as well as Ethiopia and Djibouti,” he said.

The secretary-general recalled that with the outbreak of the crisis, IIROSA promptly distributed 235 tons of foodstuffs among the worst hit areas in Somalia through its offices in Mogadishu and Hergeisa and provided large quantities of clean water by digging surface and artesian wells. “Over the past few years, IIROSA sent 25 relief caravans to Somalia which benefited more than 3.9 million people,” he explained.

Basha said a mission dispatched by the organization to Somalia during Ramadan has just returned to Jeddah after distributing 93,300 kg of dates among 8,390 families who arrived in the capital city from rural and distant areas in search of food and water.

He said IIROSA’s assistance has reached many regions and districts in Somalia despite the unsafe security conditions, difficult terrain and fluctuating weather.

Quoting reports he has received from the organization’s offices in Mogadishu and Hargeisa, the secretary-general noted that hunger has affected most of the country’s eight regions where about 56 percent of the population are unable to feed themselves adequately and said about 40 percent are suffering from malnutrition and in dire need of food, water and accommodation.

“Many children die every day because of hunger and epidemic diseases such as typhoid, diarrhea and dysentery,” he added.

Basha said children die on the shoulders of their mothers who walk for long distances searching for food and water.

“The mothers, who are weakened by hunger and fatigue, have no other option but to throw the dead bodies of their children on the streets, which are now full with the bodies of old men, women and children in addition to carcasses of animals in the worst disaster to hit Somalia in more than 30 years,” he said.

Basha estimated the number of children suffering from malnutrition in Somalia at around 5 million and said it is a humanitarian and an ethical duty to rescue these children before it is too late.