UN Say Tens of Thousands of People Have Died in the Horn of Africa's Drought and Famine

29,000 Somali Children Under 5 Dead in Famine

Donkeys try to get water from a container in front of a home at a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, Thursday, Aug. 4. Dadaab, a camp designed for 90,000 people now houses around 440,000 refugees. Almost all are from war-ravaged Somalia. Some have been here for more than 20 years, when the country first collapsed into anarchy. But now more than 1,000 are arriving daily, fleeing fighting or hunger.

Hundreds of thousands are acutely malnourished, which suggests the death toll will rise

August 4, 2011

AP - The United Nations has said that tens of thousands of people have died in the Horn of Africa's drought and famine, but the U.S. estimate is the first precise death toll offered in the crisis.

Nancy Lindborg, an official with the U.S. government aid arm , told a congressional committee in Washington on Wednesday that the U.S. estimates that more than 29,000 children under age 5 have died in the last 90 days in southern Somalia.

The U.N. on Wednesday declared three new regions in Somalia famine zones. Out of a population of roughly 7.5 million, the U.N. says 3.2 million Somalis are in need of immediate lifesaving assistance.

Getting aid to the country has been difficult because al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab controls much of the country's most desperate areas.

Even before Somalia's worst drought in 60 years, many of the country's children have only known strife during their lives.

At a government rehabilitation facility in Mogadishu last week, The Associated Press obtained rare access to former al-Shabab child soldiers, providing a unique view into the workings of the group whose presence in much of Somalia is stymieing international efforts to provide emergency aid.

The former fighters assigned to a drab cement housing bloc are young -- too young. One is only 9, yet they were enforcers of harsh edicts from Islamist militants who are preventing thousands of Somalis from escaping famine.

The hardline militant group routinely recruits young teenagers, kidnapping them from schools and forcibly removing them from homes. Last week three teenage fighters surrendered to the African Union military force during a military offensive.

The most recent arrival at the rehab center, 17-year-old Abshir Mohammed Abdi, said "there was no life, no prospects" inside al-Shabab, which he belonged to for 1½ years before escaping to the camp last week. Abdi is from the country's south -- Kismayo -- where Somalia's famine is hitting hardest.

Abdi said many there are suffering, with al-Shabab fighters trying to stop the flow of refugees toward food, an outflow that threatens to diminish the population from which al-Shabab draws its conscripts and collects its taxes. Al-Shabab has denied a famine is taking place.

"Even with women and children suffering from drought, al-Shabab would stop them, stop them, stop them until they couldn't stop them anymore," Abdi said, suggesting that the wave of famine refugees was too much for the militants to stanch.