The wail of a child carries a rare note of hope in the packed Ladan displacement camp in southern Somalia, where the most malnourished children are often too weak to cry.
For mothers here, survival is their only concern, not the Iran war or the logistics behind UNICEF’s relief efforts.
They have fled a relentless drought that has struck the Horn of Africa after four consecutive failed rainy seasons, leaving crops and livestock destroyed, and arrive at the camp with little more than their children.
Aid workers warn that the war in the Middle East, more than 3,000 kilometers away, is making relief efforts even harder, driving up fuel costs and disrupting supply chains. UNICEF says $15.7 million in lifesaving supplies, including therapeutic food, vaccines, and mosquito nets, are either in transit or being readied for Somalia, but deliveries are now uncertain.
Transport costs could rise 30% to 60%, and even double on some routes, while delays caused by rerouting and backlogs become more likely, the U.N. agency says.
During a visit to Dollow on Wednesday, Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director, said the Iran war has been a "shock to the system" for the agency's work in Somalia.
"It means that we can’t get supplies in as easily, and that fuel costs are really high," she said. "It’s another problem we have to try to deal with, and it means that more and more children will suffer."
At the same time, more than 400 health and nutrition facilities have closed over the past year across Somalia, due mainly to U.S. funding cuts, leaving many communities without access to support. Aid agencies warn more closures could follow.
All those issues have compounded the situation in Ladan, where hunger threatens especially the youngest.
"What we’re seeing is that children are really on the edge already," Russell said.
In Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, the government warned last month that nearly 6.5 million people, out of a population of more than 20 million, face severe hunger as the drought worsens and conflict and global aid cuts intensify the country’s crisis.
Humanitarian needs are just the tip of the iceberg as the Somali government grapples with its long-running war against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militant group, fighting to reclaim territory from the extremists.
The latest data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global hunger monitoring group, estimates that 1.84 million children under 5 in Somalia are expected to suffer acute malnutrition in 2026.
In Ladan, spread across the town’s dusty outskirts, rows of makeshift shelters stretch under the harsh sun, fragile structures of plastic sheets and torn fabric held together by sticks and thorn branches. The camp is home to about 4,500 households.
"We just want our children to survive," said Shamso Nur Hussein, a 20-year-old widow with three children. She fled her village in the Bakool region after losing all her farm animals.
Her cooking hearth at the camp, three stones and ash, was cold, with no sign of a recent fire.
"Since morning, we have only had black tea," she told The Associated Press (AP) at the camp.
At the hospital in Dollow, mothers sat shoulder to shoulder on narrow beds holding frail children, some too weak to cry while others let out soft whimpers.
Liban Roble, a nutrition program coordinator, said the hospital used to see mainly moderate cases.
"Now we are receiving children in extremely critical condition, severely malnourished, weak, and in some cases almost skeletal," he said.
Roble said the hospital has only enough supplies to treat the malnourished "until mid-April or the end of April."
"If new stock doesn’t arrive, more children will deteriorate and potentially die," he said.
At Ladan’s nutrition center, health workers weighed children and dispensed a peanut-based paste, squeezing it into the children’s mouths.
It is a lifeline, a means to prevent rapid decline of malnourished children, nurse Abdimajid Adan Hussein said.
"Their weakened bodies make them vulnerable to pneumonia, diarrhea and other illnesses," Hussein said.
Community leaders say support is already falling short.
"We used to receive assistance from humanitarian agencies, but that stopped in September 2025," said Abdifatah Mohamed Osman, Ladan’s deputy chairman. "Now the little support we get is mainly therapeutic food for malnourished children."
