Stephen Rea has said he can see the same 'appalling destruction' in Somalia that was inflicted on Ireland after The Famine.

The Oscar-nominated actor, who is also a UNICEF Ambassador, has spent the last week in Somalia.

One year on from the worst drought in over 40 years the country continues to face severe challenges when it comes to feeding its people.

The United Nations was told last month that insecurity persists in Somalia, with extremist group Al-Shabaab and fighting in the Laascaanood region taking a heavy toll on civilians.

The humanitarian situation remains deeply concerning, with nearly four million people facing hunger and about 1.2 million people displaced.

Last year saw the largest increase in civilian casualties there since 2017.

Actor Stephen Rea talking with Sean Moncrieff in Somalia. Image: Newstalk

While there Stephen Rea spoke with Newstalk host Sean Moncrieff and told him he wants to help all the children he has seen.

"I wish we could do something for each and every one of those kids, because they're beautiful creatures aren't they?" he said.

"We need, especially with the whole thing of climate change, we need to let people know at home how significant it is.

"It's significant for them but also we've got to try and reduce the impact that this side of the world is having from our consumptions".

'Absolutely disgusting'

Rea said he cannot believe the world is still at this point.

"The world at the moment is quite staggering, isn't it, the amount of cruelty and absolutely disgusting; what people are doing to each other is out of this world," he said.

"I thought the Second World War, that must be the end, but here we are it's coming up again, another world war.

"I don't quite understand how to interpret the whole Somalian thing.

"I know that there's this clan system where they have a control that really that nobody should have.

"I see, I have to say, a lack of male contribution to improving it.

"I see some beautiful male teachers who are a really marvellous and are doing what they can, but I don't see too many husbands or sexual partners who are behaving with any responsibility to their children."

'That's what we're seeing in Gaza'

Rea said the conflict is one that has been replicated elsewhere.

"It's a classic colonial story: they moved the native people off the land and they gave it to some intruders, and the intruders think they own it," he said.

"That's what we're seeing in Gaza at the moment, that's just a recipe for war.

"It makes me despair, of course the North [of Ireland] makes me despair, why can't people be decent?

"I see here the same kind of appalling destruction that was inflicted in Ireland.

"What we saw yesterday, with all those huts and everything people were living in, that's exactly what the landscape must have looked like after The Famine.

"It's very distressing".

A child at a camp for Internally Displaced People in Dolo, Somalia. Image: Newstalk

Rae said more people should see what they have seen.

"It is our world, I don't want to sound patronising, but they are our children," he said.

"These are the children of the world and we are in this world with them.

"It is our responsibility to look after them, because these poor people have lost the capacity to look after then properly.

"When you look in the schools, I was so knocked out by the schools with those girls so assured, so intelligent.

"Getting the education they need and they want to be doctors, they want to be teachers, boys who want to be engineers.

"I think, 'How does this happen in the midst of all this mess?'

"It's wrong, it's absolutely wrong that people should be using funds to build weaponry when there are children that are hungry," he added.

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Main image: Actor Stephen Rea talking with Sean Moncrieff in Somalia. Image: Newstalk