Djibouti

摘要

It has been Eid, the Muslim festival, in Arhiba recently. People greeted each other, there was a great deal of noise, children were everywhere, and there was a perceptible lightening of the spirits. Nothing much else changed. Arhiba, where we work, is the poorest area of one of the poorest countries in the world. The rate of undernutrition in the Somali area of the horn of Africa is 78%, compared with 68% in Afghanistan and 52% in North Korea (figures from the United Nations). In Arhiba the rate is about 90%. Twenty per cent of all children we see are so severely undernourished mat they would probably die without special feeding; 26% of children in any case die before they are five years old.