Photos

After twenty years of civil war, Somalia today is facing one of the worst famines of its history. Thousands have died. Thousands others, most of them children and babies, suffer from severe malnutrition and dehydration. Victims flood hospitals and camps in Mogadishu. In fact, the city itself looks like a giant refugee camp.

I spent 20 days in Mogadishu in August 2011. My goal was to document the everyday life of internally displaced Somalis in these camps but more than anything else, these photographs show how dozens of people -- at least half of them being children -- starve to death every single day in the country’s capital.

And yet, those who make it to Mogadishu are the fortunate ones. Many more others live in regions controlled by al-Shabab, the Islamist insurgents, who impose draconian restrictions to aid delivery and move starving families back into famine zones they had fled. Mogadishu is far from being a safe haven. Camps and hospitals, where foreign aid workers continue to provide medial care, are at permanent risk of being attacked.

Somalia may seem very far away. But what is happening there -- and the death of a single child in itself -- shakes the human conscience. As drought worsens, the United Nations say some 750.000 people are at risk of death in the coming months