"As the last bit of life drained from his frail body, Ahmed Nur was still tethered to an intravenous tube. His father brushed his fingers over the boy’s eyes to close the motionless eyelids. He gently pulled a sheet over his son’s face and removed the tube from his thin arm."
"'Don’t cry, don’t cry,' the neighbours said to his mother, Khadijo Mumin. 'God gave him to you, and God is taking him back.' ...
Ms. Mumin and her dying family, who have trekked from camp to camp in search of food for the past year, are an omen of a much greater disaster that threatens to come. The United Nations announced on Monday that four million Somalis – more than half of country’s population – are now living in famine zones, and 750,000 are at risk of death within the next few months."
Geoffrey York reports for the Toronto Globe and Mail September 5, 2011.
SEE ALSO:
"U.N. Officials Say Famine Is Widening in Somalia" (New York Times)
"U.N. Says Famine Is Spreading In Somalia" (Washington Post)
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