Famine declared in 6th region of Somalia

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=5510&cat=voice-from...

Most recent report from Doctors Without Borders.
"Malnutrition rates are very high in large parts of south and central Somalia, but the ongoing conflict makes it difficult for international organizations like Doctors Without Broders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to operate at full capacity. Where we can work, our doctors face immense pressure due to the large numbers of people who need emergency assistance.

Dr. Faiza Adan Abdirahman is the medical doctor in charge of the pediatric department at Istarlin hospital in Galgaduud, where MSF has been working since January 2006. She spoke by phone on August 30:

I’m in charge of the pediatric department, where I deal with newborns and children up to the age of 14. Our main focus at the moment is the large number of malnourished children coming to us.

The children we’re treating are severely sick. [Today] it’s only 3pm and we’ve already admitted 70 children. These are children who are so ill that they can’t even take medicine on their own. In our outpatient department, we are receiving a lot of patients.

Before the droughts, less than 20 percent of our patients were malnourished, but now the number is closer to 50 percent. With malnourishment, come all manner of other diseases. Many of these children are suffering from watery diarrhea and pneumonia. We’re also seeing other problems and complications such as measles and renal and heart problems.

For children whose condition is critical and a second medical opinion is necessary, we use telemedicine technology to connect with a pediatric specialist based in Nairobi. We have been holding real-time medical consultations between Guri El and Nairobi since last December. So far the results have been positive.

A lot of the children we’re treating are very young, of breastfeeding age. Breast milk contains vital antibodies that babies need to fight off infection, and without it, they’re left defenceless. But we’re in a situation where mothers themselves have nothing to eat and, as a result, are not producing milk. This means children aren’t being breastfed and are left vulnerable. We’re seeing the results of this on a daily basis.

Let me tell you about one patient we’re currently treating: Seven-year-old Bishaaro was brought to us in a very bad state. She was weak and had ulcers all across her body, which were all infected. She also had liver problems, was severely anemic and, after we ran some tests, we found she also had kala azar, which is a tropical disease transmitted by sandflies that is deadly if left untreated.

We started treating her immediately, giving her medicine and a blood transfusion. But then she started bleeding from her nose and her mouth. She lost so much blood that we had to give her a second blood transfusion. Bishaaro is getting better now and her bleeding stopped. We all have high hopes that she’ll recover fully and go home soon.

We’re facing a lot of challenges here at the moment, so many, in fact, that we’d probably be here all day if I listed them all. We have parents who are opting for traditional medicine when their children fall ill, with traditional doctors burning and cutting the children’s skin in an attempt to heal them. These wounds get infected and, as these children’s defences haven’t fully developed, they either die or come to us in terrible shape with all sorts of infections.

We have parents taking away their children before they complete their treatment, and then returning them to us when their condition has deteriorated even further.

Most of all, space is the biggest issue. We’re currently treating the largest number of patients at the hospital since I’ve been working here, and space is at a premium. We are over capacity and are constantly working out ways of keeping malnourished patients apart from those suffering from TB or measles. Putting them together is simply not an option.

Despite all these major challenges, lives are being saved and we are able to assist these children, many of whom would have died'
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http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2011/0809/Somalia-famine-Le...

Enough spoke with eminent Somalia expert and political science professor Ken Menkhaus about what’s behind the famine sweeping East Africa and lessons that we should take away from the crisis.

The famine in the Horn of Africa was spurred by a drought, but there are plenty of manmade triggers of the current crisis. Can you pinpoint the most responsible?

MENKHAUS: This is a part of the world that is more susceptible to extreme variations in seasonal rainfall than almost anywhere in the world. One in every five years there is an extreme drought; one in every five years there is an extreme flood. Historically, local populations have developed pretty elaborate coping mechanisms. But those coping mechanisms have been overloaded in recent decades by a wide range of factors, which have disrupted the old coping mechanisms that populations used to have. Previously, people would suffer during these years of extremes, but they would usually survive. Now that’s broken, particularly in Somalia.

So what we’ve got is the worst drought in 60 years, combined with 1.4 million Somalis internally displaced by years of warfare. As we all know, internally displaced people are always the most vulnerable because they’ve lost their livelihoods and their support system at home. And this has all been unfolding in the context of a perfect storm for food insecurity globally: We have a spike in fuel prices and food prices. A big part of the crisis in Somalia is not just that people used to be able to farm for subsistence and now can’t; there are lots of people whose purchasing power has been badly eroded. There is food on the market in much of Somalia, but people can’t afford it.

RELATED: Four reasons aid is slow to reach Somalia's famine victims

Another element of this perfect storm is the suspension of food aid to southern Somalia (the area controlled by the militant group al-Shabaab) for two years. Somalia hasn’t been self-sufficient since the early 1970s. But aid delivery has been suspended in recent years for three main reasons: Insecurity – In 2008 a third of all casualties worldwide occurred in Somalia, so aid groups started pulling out because they couldn’t justify the risk. Second, the U.S. government’s suspension of aid due to counterterrorism grounds; allowing aid to reach Shabaab was a violation of the Patriot Act. Third was Shabaab’s ban on most international agencies from working in the areas it controlled, accusing them of being spies and of trying to put Somali farmers out of business. We heard good news this week on a shift in US policy to legally protect NGOs from being prosecuted under the Patriot Act. But that third bottleneck is still unresolved. As long as Shabaab continues blocking food aid, we’re limited in what we can do.
more at the link
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Current news is that Al Shabaab has pulled out of Mogadishu and is splintering. One can only hope this is true.

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/

Absolutely. Wastefulness is a big part of this crisis globally.