1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Children playing in the ruins of a building destroyed in the Badbado IDP camp.Mogadishu;SomaliaThe Horn of Africa is facing a severe crisis due to the convergent effects of the worst droughts in decades, and the persistent effects of armed conflict in Somalia, which has combined to trigger one of the sharpest refugee outflows in a decade to Kenya and Ethiopia. Over ten million people are at high risk including 2.85 million persons in Somalia, 3.2 million in Ethiopia and 3.5 million in Kenya.–– Despite access and security limitations, UNICEF is working with local partners in Somalia to bring much-needed relief to over 200,000 people newly displaced by the recent upsurge in conflict in the capital, Mogadishu. - For hundreds of thousands of displaced Somali children, daily life is a mixture of fear and insecurity. Communities break apart, as one by one families leave their villages to flee ongoing conflict. If they survive the journey to Mogadishu, life is not much easier, as they are faced with the daily challenge of finding food and shelter. For children, this experience can be traumatizing. Having fled their homes in search of safety, they find themselves in overcrowded camps, away from all they know. While most children arrive in the displaced camps with their families, some are tragically separated from their parents and are either left to fend for themselves or forced to rely on already overburdened community members. Each Child Friendly Space has facilitators from UNICEF’s NGO partners who work with the children. Several of the partners also have social workers to help identify and refer children in need of care and protection to the appropriate services.