“I spent weeks
at the feeding center, run by Médecins Sans Frontières, where Somali women
brought their children for
medical attention and where the malnourished children were placed under a
feeding program until their weight was stabilized. This often took months as
many of the children had secondary illnesses and some remained in the feeding center for more
than a year.

“Hadija and her father often sat apart from the other families in the
feeding center. In the first few days, I watched as she moved silently through
her treatment. Her father and the feeding center staff would talk to her but it
seemed that either she failed to understand what was going on around her, or
refused to respond. She never struggled against those who helped her, but
neither did she act on her own. I was told that she and her parents had fled
from their village in Somalia after an attack by a rival clan, and during the
flight Hadija’s mother had been separated from her and her father. Although he
searched for his wife, Hadija’s father failed to find her. Eventually, the two
of them continued on to Mandera in the hope that the mother would be traveling
in the same direction. But she never arrived and ever since their separation
Hadija had been mute.”—Fazal Sheikh