Turkish medics treat 30,000 Somalis

ANKARA - Nearly 30,000 Somalis have been treated in tent hospitals and shelters set up by the Turkish Health Ministry in Mogadishu, the capital of famine-stricken Somalia, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported Monday.

The Turkish aid team's leading doctor Akif Saatcioglu was quoted as saying that the team of 25 staff treats some 1,000 patients every day, adding 30 percent of the patients had respiratory infection, 15 percent had diarrhea, 10 percent, skin diseases, five percent, eye diseases and 40 percent, other diseases.

Somalia is now facing one of the worst droughts in 60 years, whose epicenter lies on the three-way border shared by Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, a nomadic region where families heavily depend on livestock.