In January 2012, Gemma Parkin from the UNICEF UK Media Team visited Djibouti in east Africa with The Sun newspaper to see how the country's only children's hospital is coping with the ongoing malnutrition crisis.
Whenever I travel to assess how UNICEF donations are making a difference, the first thing I want to know is: "Is the money we raise saving children’s lives?"
Meeting Dr Robleh was a grim introduction to the answer. As the only pediatrician in Djibouti, Dr Robleh is over-worked and under-staffed as he runs the only children’s hospital in this peaceful East African nation, where a quarter of the population is affected by the drought. He is composed but desperate as he appeals to us for more help, more attention and more money for the hospital.
Babies lie in cots so malnourished their legs are like fingers, none of the natural chubbiness that usually makes me long to cuddle babies – if you picked up these brittle looking children you imagine they’d shatter.
We meet a mother who waits for her six-month-old daughter Ramadn to adjust to the food being pumped into her stomach via a tube. Ramadn’s brother died two days ago.
The doctor has run out of space at the hospital and is now treating children in the broom cupboard. He is a highly qualified, dignified, inspirational man, but these conditions are almost unbearable and twice during the food crisis he has considered quitting. There’s only so much one man can take.
The hospital used to deal with all sorts of diseases that threaten children and only had two rooms dealing with malnourished children, but now the whole hospital deals with young victims of the famine.
"All the health centres have doubled their intake and its getting worse every day, " says Dr Robleh. "Famine is not the biggest issue, it’s also the price of basic necessities like oil to cook with, which is now more expensive than petrol for a car."
He goes on to describe the tragic choices that families have to make when they can’t feed all their children:
"If a family only has enough food for one child, there’s no point them splitting it between the two children because then they are risking both their lives. Families have to choose one child who will be fed the remaining food and hopefully survive, sacrificing the other."
The doctor explains that he has to turn sick children away from the hospital because it is so full and can only deal with the most severe cases of malnutrition, the children that are on the brink of death.
It’s not just the drought, or the food prices that’s the problem.
I’m with a journalist who hasn’t heard about the scandal of the developing world, where baby formula is aggressively marketed to African mothers. These mothers long for their babies to be as plump and healthy as the baby-models in the adverts. Instead of breastfeeding, which gives children the best nutritional start in life - and is free – mothers are encouraged to buy formula milk, which when mixed with local water tends to become contaminated with killer diseases. The UNICEF nutrition programme is tackling this by promoting breastfeeding and educating mothers across communities in Djibouti. By doing this we can stop children becoming so malnourished and so ill that they end up in this hospital.
The journalist is horrified. The doctor has seen this reaction before. I know I’ve answered my question – this is the front line for Djibouti, this is where we are saving lives. I make an urgent appeal for Dr Robleh to continue his incredible work.
The doctor says that the practical help from UNICEF keeps him going, so I make a promise way above my pay grade: that we will do everything in our power to continue to fund the life-saving work here in Djibouti’s only children’s hospital.
Find out more
Gemma Parkin is a Media Officer at UNICEF UK