Somali children struggle in famine-struck capital

MOGADISHU, Somalia - In drought-ravaged Somalia where food is scarce, 3-year-old Ibrahim is so severely malnourished he weighs less than eight kilograms, about the same as an 8-month-old baby.

"My child is very sick; he's had a fever, vomiting and got diarrhoea," said his mother Rukyo Abdullahi, sitting worriedly by her tiny son's bedside, his skin stretched tight against his small bones. "He was given some medicine from a local pharmacy, but as soon as he took it, he got worse - the blood drained away from his face."

Abdullahi fled with Ibrahim into the famine-hit Somali capital last week, risking violence in one of the world's most dangerous cities in a desperate effort to save her son's life.