Death Rates Among Highest Ever

Death rates surveyed recently at two Somali locations, Baidoa and Afgoi, are among the highest ever documented in a famine-affected area, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The overall death rate in Baidoa from April to December was 16.9 deaths daily per 10,000 people and 30.1 deaths daily for children 5 and under, according to the Dec. 11 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The survey also found:

* Between Aug. 9 and Nov. 14 in Baidoa, 12,255 bodies were transported for burial, about one-fifth of the town’s estimated normal population, swollen lately by famine refugees.

* Only 9% of the sample population of Baidoa was age 5 and under, indicating massive deaths of young children and babies before the survey began.

CDC officials concluded that health conditions “are considerably worse in Somalia than they were during peak mortality periods of the 1984-85 famine in Ethiopia and Sudan.”