KISMAYO, Somalia (AP) — For three days, Halima Abdullahi Ibrahim carried her 3-year-old daughter from their village in Somalia to a hospital nearly 90 kilometers (56 miles) away. The girl's body was swelling and she needed medical help unavailable closer to home.
When she finally reached Kismayo Referral Hospital, Halima's daughter, Asho Hassan Abdi, was taken to the stabilization center, a white-walled ward lined with metal-framed beds, some beneath mosquito nets. Halima held Asho on her lap, the child wrapped in purple cloth, as a health worker examined her feet and lower legs.
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Halima Abdullahi Ibrahim sits with her 3-year-old daughter Asho Hassan Abdi, in a stabilization center in Kismayo, Somalia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Hawa Ali holds her son Ramadan Osmanin, who is suffering from malnutrition, in Kimanyo general hospital in Kismayo, Somalia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Khadija Hilowle holds her son Abdi Shafi, who is suffering from malnutrition, in Kimanyo general hospital in Kismayo, Somalia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Halima Abdullahi Ibrahim holds her 3-year-old daughter Asho Hassan Abdi, in a stabilization center in Kismayo, Somalia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
They diagnosed her with edema, a symptom of severe acute malnutrition.
Asho is one child in a national emergency. Some 1.92 million Somali children between the ages of 6 months and almost 5 years old are suffering from or are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition and need treatment over a one year period ending in June 2027, according to an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. That includes 433,000 children expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition, the form carrying the greatest risk of death.
More than half of Somalia’s projected malnutrition cases are concentrated in the south, where communities face disease outbreaks, food insecurity and limited access to health services, clean water and sanitation. Expected flooding associated with El Niño could displace more families and make those services even harder to reach.
The hospital where Asho was being treated admitted 152 children with severe acute malnutrition in August, four of whom died, Jubbaland Health Minister Ismail Garas said.
And the crisis comes as humanitarian organizations have fewer resources to respond. The AP reported in August that the World Food Program can provide only limited assistance despite the growing need. Somalia’s emergency also reflects a wider retreat in humanitarian funding that is weakening efforts to fight hunger, disease and poverty around the world.
Sandra Lattouf, Somalia representative for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, said children are dying from malnutrition, while illnesses including measles intensify the danger.
“We need to do more for them,” Lattouf told AP during a visit to Kismayo.
She called for closer cooperation among community health workers, local leaders, government authorities and humanitarian organizations.
The effects of displacement and reduced assistance are visible at the Luglow settlement on the outskirts of Kismayo, a port city home to more than 250,000 people in the country's south. Dome-shaped shelters made from bent branches and patched plastic sheeting stand across the red earth, with dirty water pooled in ruts between.
At the settlement’s nutrition center, mothers sit on mats with young children in their laps while members of a visiting UNICEF delegation crouch to speak with them.
Ali Adan Ali, Jubbaland’s commissioner for refugees and internally displaced people, said many displaced families had received no humanitarian assistance since 2023 because aid organizations lacked funding.
“The current situation of the IDPs in Jubbaland is very dire,” Ali said.
He warned that flooding could force people living along the Juba River to move toward Kismayo, which is on higher ground, placing additional pressure on settlements, nutrition centers and hospitals.
Sweden’s ambassador to Somalia, Hans Henric Lundquist, visited the Luglow nutrition center with Lattouf and met local officials, mothers and children. He said agencies must work more closely with communities as funding becomes increasingly constrained.
“We need to build resilience, because globally there is lack of funding,” Lundquist said. “We need to work smarter than we’ve done before.”
Halima’s journey shows what the crisis can mean for one family: A severely malnourished child may be separated from specialized care by poverty, distance and a health system strained by growing needs and shrinking international assistance. And that can be a matter of life or death.
For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Halima Abdullahi Ibrahim sits with her 3-year-old daughter Asho Hassan Abdi, in a stabilization center in Kismayo, Somalia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Hawa Ali holds her son Ramadan Osmanin, who is suffering from malnutrition, in Kimanyo general hospital in Kismayo, Somalia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Khadija Hilowle holds her son Abdi Shafi, who is suffering from malnutrition, in Kimanyo general hospital in Kismayo, Somalia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Halima Abdullahi Ibrahim holds her 3-year-old daughter Asho Hassan Abdi, in a stabilization center in Kismayo, Somalia, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire” in the 4 1/2-year-old war, but he offered no details on it and Kyiv reported attacks by Moscow on energy sites after his statement.
Trump’s brief social media post said only that the ceasefire took effect immediately, adding: “Do not break it!”
Moscow did not immediately comment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that while his country “welcomed” the announcement by Trump as “good news for everyone,” Russia was still hitting energy infrastructure in Kyiv and in the city of Kharkiv.
“Unfortunately, Ukrainian skies have been infested with Russian ‘shaheds’ all day today,” he said in an evening address, referring to drones launched by Moscow . “There have been glide bomb strikes and strikes on our energy infrastructure too. A power plant in Kharkiv was attacked this evening.”
The presidential office confirmed the Kharkiv attack came after Trump's ceasefire post.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine was “ready to refrain from striking Russian energy infrastructure — and we count on the same readiness from Russia.”
Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians power, heat and running water during the war, hoping to wear down public resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as “weaponizing winter.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine has proposed many de-escalatory steps but Russian President Vladimir Putin “had one answer to all of them — ‘nyet.’ We do hope that he will finally say something different to America, Ukraine, and the entire world.”
He said Kyiv is maintaining contact with the U.S., and he thanked Americans for their support. He said on X that he had spoken about the development with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
In an interview broadcast earlier Sunday, Zelenskyy said Kyiv was ready to stop striking Russian refineries if Moscow halted attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, and he asked Trump to press the Kremlin to agree.
“We are asking President Trump, (to) give them (a) signal, not (to) attack energy infrastructure of Ukraine,” he told ABC’s “This Week .”
On Sept. 14, Trump claimed on social media that both countries had agreed “not to hit” each other’s energy infrastructure but offered no details on that proposal either. While Zelenskyy had said Ukraine was ready to comply if Russia did, nothing came of the proposal.
Trump said Saturday it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war and blaming him for high diesel prices in the U.S.
Zelenskyy said in response to Trump's comments that Ukraine could hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire.
“Give us two months, 60 days off. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections,” he said, adding that Ukraine would be ready to accept whatever choice its people made.
“With all respect to President Trump, it’s up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader,” he said. Holding an election during the war would be unlawful and that Ukraine would need security guarantees to allow for safe voting, Zelenskyy added.
Ukraine has been under martial law since Putin launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and the Ukrainian Constitution bars elections while it remains in force. Beyond the legal barrier, a nationwide vote would be vulnerable to Russian attacks, and organizing one is widely seen as logistically impossible, with roughly a fifth of the country held by Russia, millions of Ukrainians displaced abroad and soldiers on the front line. Zelenskyy’s term formally expired in May 2024, but the constitution allows him to remain in office until a new president is sworn in.
The exchange came as Kyiv pressed its campaign against Russian infrastructure, with a drone attack on Sunday shutting down a data center in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, run by technology giant Yandex. It was the third strike on the company’s facilities in four days.
Russia and Ukraine have been waging a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line.
Trump, who on Friday struck a deal with Putin to buy diesel from Moscow in an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of U.S. midterm elections, has been urging Zelenskyy for weeks to stop striking Russian energy infrastructure.
He has sought to blame record U.S. diesel prices on Ukraine rather than the U.S.-led war in Iran, which has driven up world energy prices. Ukrainian and European officials reacted to the diesel deal with dismay, saying it will help pay for Russia’s war effort.
The Ukrainian drone attack on the Yandex data center in Vladimir caused outages across the company's services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities and in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia unable to order taxis or access banking services, according to Russian independent news outlet Astra.
“Operations at the data center have been completely halted. There were no injuries,” said the Yandex Cloud Telegram channel, which updates service availability.
Moscow residents described disruption to everyday tasks. Pavel Belyavskiy, a driver for Yandex Taxi, said it was unclear whether orders were coming through at all, and that he had to cancel several rides after waiting a long time because he could not reach the passenger.
“I’d press the ‘call’ button to contact them, but nothing happens,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do, so I’m just forced to cancel.”
Igor Mann said he tried to check on an order on the Yandex Market shopping platform but the page was unavailable, and connecting through a virtual private network did not help. “Nothing worked,” he said.
Another Muscovite, Eduard Malyavko, said the outages had a “direct impact” and weren't just about “convenience.” He said they affected “healthcare, and everything else.”
On Thursday, a drone attack took a Yandex data center offline in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow. The next day, Ukrainian drones hit the company’s major data center in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, disabling part of the facility, Yandex said.
Yandex, often described as Russia’s Google, runs the country’s most popular search engine and a wide range of digital services, and is heavily involved in Russia’s artificial intelligence development.
Elsewhere, search and rescue operations ended in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after a Russian bombing on Saturday, according to Ivan Fedorov, former regional head and co-chair of the regional defense council.
Zelenskyy said 23 people were killed in the attack, including four children. More than 30 people were wounded, Fedorov said, with eight still hospitalized.
A man was killed and two women wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's Bryansk border region, local officials said Sunday.
Blann reported from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Morton reported from London.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A car burns following a Russian strike on a residential neighbourhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)
An injured man looks at his house destroyed in a Russian strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)
A rescue worker puts out a fire at residential houses destroyed in a Russian strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)
A Yandex food delivery courier rides his scooter in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as he arrives on Air Force One, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the media after a German-Ukrainian business forum in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Rescue workers clear the rubble of a residential building destroyed by a Russian airstrike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
Rescue workers pull a family from the rubble of a residential building destroyed by a Russian airstrike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, examines the current prototype of an unmanned vehicle during his visits Russia's largest internet search engine Yandex headquarters in Moscow, Russia, on Sept. 21, 2017. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
