on the parched plains of Somaliland, the latest victim of the drought is not even old enough to have a name. By local tradition, a sheep ought to have been slaughtered to name Khadra Saaed’s baby boy, but none could be found. So he died an unknown casualty of an unreported crisis, only seven days after he was born.
That night, close to the village of Unuunley, his father buried him by moonlight. It was the tenth such burial he has attended in a month, as the worst drought ever recorded here has swept across the country.
This family was once sustained by a hundred animals but is now down to its last goat. Ms Saeed has been surviving on one meal of rice a day and is so hungry that she could not produce breast milk to feed her malnourished son. Now that she has lost him, she has no time to grieve; she has four remaining children to worry about.
