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A severly malnourished child who has been connected to a drip sits with her mother while waiting for further medical assistance from 'The Gift of the Givers' at a makeshift medical camp for famine stricken Somalis in the Hawlwadag district, Mogadishu, Somalia, 03 August 2011. Three more areas of Somalia, including parts of the capital, were declared famine hit on 03 August, with the United Nations warning that the country's prospects were worsening. Image Credit: EPA

Mogadishu: Somalia’s president is urging donors to fulfil aid pledges made to his fledgling government, while the UN is appealing for aid money, saying that 50,000 children are at risk of death from malnutrition.

Philippe Lazzarini, the UN’s top aid official in Somalia, said Tuesday that Somalia’s hunger situation does not compare to the devastating 2011 famine, but that it’s similar to just before a famine. The UN is asking for $933 million for its 2014 Somalia aid operations.

He said international donors, squeezed by the continuing crisis in Syria and new emergencies in South Sudan and Central African Republic, have given less money to Somalia. Donors have continuing concerns about the theft and corruption of aid money in a country with little effective government.