AmeriCares has responded to the continuing humanitarian crisis in Somalia with emergency shipments of critical medical, nutritional and other humanitarian assistance. In collaboration with our partners in the Mogadishu area we are providing support and supplies for primary health care providers, nutritional supplements in response to famine conditions and water purification supplies to help prevent cholera and other communicable diseases.

Snapshot of Somalia:

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, when clan militias overthrew the ruling government and eventually turned on each other, leading to long-term civil conflict. Although a fledgling government has managed to sustain a limited presence in and around Mogadishu, the people of Somalia face enormous challenges, including basic food security and health care access. Life expectancy in this long suffering country is just 50 years. Critical health issues:

• Among highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the world
• High risk of communicable disease including diarrheal disease, malaria, dengue fever, typhoid
• Severe malnutrition

Since 1985, when severe famine claimed one million lives in Ethiopia, AmeriCares has worked to help African men, women and children in crisis. Previous aid to Somalia includes more than $3 million in medicines, nutritional supplements, and vitamins during the height of the drought and war-stricken nation’s food crisis of 2008-09. See images of our work in Somalia.

In the summer of 2011, amid ongoing political chaos, Somalia was hard-hit by a humanitarian crisis of historic proportions. The worst drought in 60 years decimated crops and livestock, resulting in famine that extended across the Horn of Africa. Tens of thousands of Somalis fled their homes in search of food and water, and U.N. officials estimating that more than 12 million people needed emergency aid, with babies, young children and pregnant women especially at risk.

AmeriCares has launched a large-scale emergency response in Somalia, including the building of a field hospital in the Kambioos refugee camp in Kenya, along with a series of ongoing shipments of medicines, nutritional supplements, water purification tablets and medical supplies to help save as many lives as possible in this beleaguered region of Africa.

Communicable Disease:

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation has awarded a $250,000 grant to AmeriCares to establish a model cholera treatment center in Mogadishu, in collaboration with the Bangladesh-based health research institution icddr,b, for victims of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Somalia.

AmeriCares also donates medical products to qualified U.S. health care professionals who are traveling to Somalia to provide charitable medical care. Through this program, donated medicines and medical supplies reach impoverished and isolated communities where even basic medical care is inaccessible to the poor or often non-existent. AmeriCares donations cure infections, relieve pain, help patients manage chronic diseases and make life-changing surgeries possible.

Find out more about our Medical Outreach program