(Image: WHO)

BY STEFANIE REDDING

Somalians are facing a widespread cholera epidemic --- within a week the number of cholera related cases increased by 11 percent.

Here’s Xinhua News Agency.

“The world health organization said on Friday an alarmingly high number of cholera cases have been reported in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu this year more than two hundred people have been killed. The number of cases is two even three times than what it was there last year, and health experts are saying its an epidemic.”

Many of the victims that are susceptible to cholera are children. The infection dwells in the small intestines -- with symptoms include watery diarrhea and vomiting. The infection is treated by oral rehydration, however, the numbers of those infected are growing.

The Daily Beast explains why...

“The epidemic has spread so quickly because so much of the population is mobile. Sections of the southern part of the country have been gripped by a famine that has already killed an estimated 29,000 children. More than 100,000 people have fled the south and settled in makeshift camps in Mogadishu.”

Most people that are traveling have little to eat and are consuming contaminated water. Somalia faces its worst drought in 60 years leaving about 12 million people facing starvation. (Video source: Telegraph)

Although cholera infections are causing the deaths -- militant groups are to blame for slowing the flow of aid.

The New York Times reports...

“Compounding the problem are the limitations of the transitional government of Somalia, which controls little more than the capital -- and it is a loose control at that -- and much of the country is in the hands of a group of Islamist militants, the Shabab, who have forced out many Western aid organizations.”

So what’s being done to protect the people from the militant groups? The National Post writes...

“Somalia on Saturday called for the creation of a special humanitarian force to protect food aid convoys.”

Currently, WHO has issued diarrheal disease kits to treat affected areas of  the Horn of Africa