United Nations – UN: Hundreds of Thousands Face Death And Starvation in East Africa

    10

    A Somali woman comforts her son as he rests in a hospital where he is receiving treatment for malnutrition, in Ifo Camp, outside Dadaab, Kenya, Thursday, July 14, 2011. East Africa's drought is battering Somali children, hundreds of whom have been left for dead on the long, dry journey to the world's largest refugee complex in Dadaab, northern Kenya. UNICEF on Thursday called the drought and refugee crisis "the most severe humanitarian emergency in the world."(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)United Nations – The United Nations warned Wednesday that the famine in East Africa hasn’t peaked and hundreds of thousands of people face imminent starvation and death without a massive global response.

    Join our WhatsApp group

    Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email


    U.N. deputy emergency relief coordinator Catherine Bragg appealed to the international community for $1.3 billion needed urgently to save lives.

    “Every day counts,” she told the U.N. Security Council. “We believe that tens of thousands have already died. Hundreds of thousands face imminent starvation and death. We can act to prevent further loss of life and ensure the survival of those who are on the brink of death.”

    Bragg’s office, which coordinates U.N. humanitarian efforts, said the famine is expected to spread to all regions of south Somalia in the next four to six weeks unless further aid can be delivered. The global body says it has received $1.1 billion, just 46 percent of the $2.4 billion requested from donor countries.

    Bragg’s appeal came as a U.N. food agency official warned that the number of people fleeing famine-hit areas of Somalia is likely to rise dramatically and could overwhelm international aid efforts in the Horn of Africa.
    In this picture taken Wednesday Aug. 10, 2011, Salat, 5, runs looking for her parents near the IFO camp, north of  Dadaab, Eastern Kenya, 100 kms (60 miles) from the Somali border. She was later picked up by her uncle who said he know where her parents were and would reunite them. Some parents fleeing Somalia's devastating famine on foot with as many as seven children in tow have had to make unimaginably cruel choices: Which children have the best chance at survival when there is not enough water for them all? Who will be left behind? It's a gut-wrenching decision that will haunt parents for years. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
    Luca Alinovi, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s representative in Kenya, warned that the situation could become “simply unbearable” in the coming weeks if Somalis continue to abandon their homes in southern and central parts of the country — which are mainly under control of al-Shabab Islamist extremists — in search of food.

    The United Nations estimates over 11 million people across East Africa need food aid because of a long-running drought exacerbated by al-Shabab’s refusal to allow many humanitarian organizations to deliver aid in areas it controls, including the U.N. World Food Program, the world’s major aid provider.

    According to the U.N.’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, Bragg said, “the current situation represents the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world today and Africa’s worst food security crisis since Somalia’s 1991-92 famine.”

    “We have not yet seen the peak of the crisis,” she warned, citing high levels of severe malnutrition and deaths of children under age 5, combined with increasing cereal prices and a dry harvest season.

    The Food and Agriculture Organization reported Wednesday that cereal prices in East Africa reached new peaks in several countries last month, worsening the already dramatic situation for millions of hungry people. The FAO said prices of milk also were at record or very high levels in most of the region.

    Food prices have been driven higher by drought-plagued harvests and sharp increases in fuel and transport costs, according to the Rome-based agency.
    A female relative holds the hand of Abdi Hussein, 3, as he rests in a hospital where he is receiving treatment for malnutrition, in Ifo Camp, outside Dadaab, Kenya, Thursday, July 14, 2011. East Africa's drought is battering Somali children, hundreds of whom have been left for dead on the long, dry journey to the world's largest refugee complex in Dadaab, northern Kenya. UNICEF on Thursday called the drought and refugee crisis "the most severe humanitarian emergency in the world."(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
    In the past two months some 220,000 people have fled toward the Somali capital of Mogadishu and across the borders to Kenya and Ethiopia, where refugee camps are straining under the pressure of new arrivals. Almost 1 million people are displaced elsewhere in Somalia, the U.N. estimates.

    “The possibility is basically having everybody who lives in that (famine) area moving out, which would be a disaster,” FAO’s Alinovi said, adding that transportation costs have doubled in recent months — evidence that there is growing pressure to leave.

    Alinovi said FAO was working to prevent Somalis from abandoning their drought-stricken farms by paying them cash for small jobs, thus allowing people to remain. Once people leave their farms, they become dependent on aid for a very long time, he said.
    Faqid Nur Elmi's  poses outside her hut in Dagahaley refugee camp north of  Dadaab, Eastern Kenya, 100 kms (60 miles) from the Somali border, Thursday Aug. 11, 2011.  When her 3-year-old son succumbed to hunger and thirst while fleeing Somalia's famine, she could only surround his body with small dried branches to serve as his grave. She couldn't stop to mourn _ there were five other children to think about. The United Nations warned Wednesday  that the famine in East Africa hasn't peaked and hundreds of thousands of people face imminent starvation and death without a massive global response.About 1,300 new refugees arrive each day in Dadaab camps in northeastern Kenya. The new influx are running away from a famine that is getting worse in southern Somalia as an al-Qaida-linked militants in the country barred some major aid groups from operating in its areas of control, worsening the situation of the most vulnerable people. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
    Cash payments have been controversial in Somalia, because of the possibility that money might end up in the hands of militant groups like al-Shabab, who are fighting the weak central government in Mogadishu.

    “It is a risk that can be handled,” Alinovi said of the cash payments, warning that the alternative could be a sharp rise in the number fleeing. “If this becomes a massive number, like hundreds of thousands of people moving out, then this simple problem will be very difficult to bear.”

    Bragg told the Security Council that in areas under control of al-Shabab, the U.N. and its partners continue to negotiate for access.

    In recent weeks, she said, some progress was made to scale up emergency operations by the International Committee of the Red Cross in central and southern Somalia. It is the only organization allowed to conduct food distribution in al-Shabab areas.

    The U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, is also boosting its supplies for feeding centers, she said.

    Since July, Bragg said, food is also being delivered to two newly accessible areas in the Gedo region.

    But she said 3.7 million Somalis “are in crisis,” 2.8 million of them in south central Somalia, and 3.2 million need “immediate, lifesaving assistance” including 1.25 million children.

    A Somali child pulls a water container near UNHCR's Ifo Extension camp outside  Dadaab, eastern Kenya, 100 kms (60 miles) from the Somali border, Tuesday Aug. 9, 2011. U.S. President Barack Obama has approved $105 million for humanitarian efforts in the Horn of Africa to combat worsening drought and famine. The drought and famine in the horn of Africa has  killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5 in the last 90 days in southern Somalia alone, according to U.S. estimates. The U.N. says 640,000 Somali children are acutely malnourished, suggesting the death toll of small children will rise. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


    Listen to the VINnews podcast on:

    iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podbean | Amazon

    Follow VINnews for Breaking News Updates


    Connect with VINnews

    Join our WhatsApp group


    10 Comments
    Most Voted
    Newest Oldest
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    12 years ago

    Hmmm… the UN is finally focusing on something OTHER than bashing Holocaust survivor grandmothers for living in Judea and Samaria.

    SherryTheNoahide
    SherryTheNoahide
    12 years ago

    I watched footage of this current tragedy last night on Anderson Cooper, and I felt sick to my stomach when the news segment was over.

    What have we become as a people, that here in the 21st Century, the world can sit back & just ACCEPT that 30,000 children have died in the past 90 days, and that 600,000 are on the brink of starvation?!

    I realize they have a militant group surrounding them, refusing to let the children be inoculated with immunizations, refusing to let food in…

    But what are WE (the worldwide population- and especially those of us who live in the FREE world), going to do about it?!?! Just sit back & watch them all die?! It’s CRAZY to me that we would allow such a thing on our consciences & just go about living our lives day by day hardly thinking about these people!

    There is information that you can get on how to help by clicking on CNN-Anderson Cooper 360’s show. He posts everything there. I would encourage people to check this story out PLEASE, and help do something!

    We can be the most giving & loving people EVER…but we have also had the potential to turn our heads & shut our hearts to such tragedies as well.

    I hope people make the right choice here.

    The-Macher
    The-Macher
    12 years ago

    They are Muslims. Let the oil sheikhs and the Sultan of Brunei worry about them.

    rebbeofalltherebbes
    rebbeofalltherebbes
    12 years ago

    All those Palestinian solidarity groups are very concerned about this human rights issue, but the Israeli situation is so overwhelming to them , that they feel they cannot lose focus.
    Also, they would like to show up en masse in Somalia, as they did in Israel, but they are concerned about lack of creature comforts. After a day of grueling activist work , they like to come home to cable TV and a hot shower.

    FmrBklynKid
    FmrBklynKid
    12 years ago

    600,000 muslim future Jew killers. Hard to feel any sympathy – but that is exactly what the world said about Jews during WWII. “Just Jews – hard to feel any sympathy.” Of course, unlike these poverty stricken, illiterates who will never contribute anything to society, need I remind the world what the Jews managed to contribute over the years? Can you imagine the talent that was lost? We might have cured cancer and who knows what else by now.