Somalia // Current TV

Burying a Child: A Mother's Unending Grief | Amid the Graves of Somalia's Children | Video

Amid the graves of Somalia's children CNN... . Burying a child: A... more

EthicalVegan
added this
1 year ago
|
6 comments

Famine relief progress slow in race to save millions

While the world's attention this week has been focused on the global economic... more

JanforGore
added this
1 year ago
|
18 comments

Let's get our Priorities Straight.

One of the saddest clips out of the Horn of Africa. These foreign journalists entered... more

vixxxen618
added this
1 year ago
|
33 comments

Somali children bear the brunt of famine and war

It is always the children who are the victims of the world adults create and it is the greatest injustice. War ravages this region as it has for years it's affects now exacerbated by a drought the likes of which has been unseen for decades exacerbated as is the war by human behavior which was totally preventable. I know it is a place where terrorism thrives. I know it is a place where corruption and lawlessness thrive. And it is a poor area of the world seen as expendable as noted by the many hateful comments I have read from people on other news sites, some of which absolutely stunned me. However, it is also a place where humanity must thrive in order to spare a worse catastrophe.

As 12 million people most of them children face certain death if they get no help, we on this side of the world will throw out tons of uneaten wasted food without a thought. We will continue to be absorbed in our diversions that give us pleasure with little thought to what may be going on outside of our own worlds. And we will find some reason, any reason at all to dismiss the urgency of this drought war and ensuing famine to not have to do something no matter how small it may be to at least save one life.

These children did nothing to anyone. They are products of a world not of their creation. And they are also human beings like all of us who deserve to live life with hope. We must strip away all of the political, religious and ideological obstacles that prevent us from being human now. This is a humanitarian catastrophe of untold proportions and I simply cannot believe that the world willl sit by and allow these people to die. It is truly outrageous that geopolitics and foreign policy must always become more important than simply saving a human life.

Of course, the problems here go much deeper and will not be solved with just a 10 dollar donation to MSF to give them plumpy nut. This however is part of a greater war we now fight. A war against ignorance, hatred and intolerance. If we could only grasp how opening our hearts could release so many from the fear that grips our world and just look at the human beings in front of us we could solve anything. Right now however, these children need our help. Please do so if you haven't already. Humanity won't stand a chance if we can't be human, at least this once.It is always the children who are the victims of the world adults create and it is the... more

JanforGore
added this
1 year ago
|
5 comments

FAMINE! | Humans Dying as Insurgents Block Escape | Millions Facing Starvation | Tens of Thousands Have Already Died

. Somalis Waste Away as Insurgents Block Escape From Famine By JEFFREY... more

EthicalVegan
added this
1 year ago
|
14 comments

Al-Shabab bans samosas -- remember when American almost banned French fries?

Remember when that crazy post-911 American society stigmatized French fries to such a... more

adamluebke
added this
1 year ago
|
0 comments

WWH News Briefs

Somalis flee famine along ‘roads of death’ Japanese music festivals ready... more

joeeddy
added this
1 year ago
|
0 comments

Famine in Somalia

U.N. declares famine in southern Somalia By Robyn Dixon | 2:19 p.m. To declare... more

EthicalVegan
added this
1 year ago
|
46 comments

Famine On the Horn of Africa and Why It Took the UN So Long to Declare It.

TLM discusses what the UNs definition of famine is and why Somalia's... more

TheLiberalMob
added this
1 year ago
|
0 comments

UN to declare famine in parts of drought-hit Somalia

The United Nations is set to declare a famine in parts of Somalia as it suffers the... more

sitsi
added this
1 year ago
|
1 comment

No end seen to refugees fleeing drought in East Africa

I keep trying to have hope that the right thing will be done here and in all places... more

JanforGore
added this
1 year ago
|
27 comments

Great Famine of 2011:Tragedy looms in the Horn of Africa

In 1984, a Kenyan photographer and cameraman named Mohamed Amin shocked the world into action with his images of famine victims in Ethiopia.

Africa battles worst drought in 60 years, aid agencies warn

Today, 15 years after he was tragically killed in the crash of a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines flight off the Comoros Islands, famine once again stalks the Horn of Africa, threatening the lives of 10 million people in what the USAid-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net) describes as one of the world’s most severe food security emergencies.

Perhaps no country in the region is as badly affected as Somalia. The Somalia Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) estimates that 2.85 million people — a third of the population — are now in humanitarian crisis and in need of urgent assistance, an increase of 42.5 per cent over the figure in December 2010. “We are no longer on the verge of a humanitarian disaster; we are in the middle of it now,” Isaq Ahmed, the chairman of the Mubarak Relief and Development Organisation, a local NGO working in the south of the country, told IRIN on June 28. “It is happening and no one is helping.”

Indeed, the numbers coming out of Somalia paint a terrible picture of a population caught in a perfect storm of calamities: A two-decade long brutal conflict that has seen the country play host to one of the largest displaced populations in the world; the worst drought in a generation has precipitated a sharp decline in food production; rising food prices mean that even the little available is out of reach of the impoverished population; and funding shortfalls for relief agencies resulting from a faltering global economy.

The prevalence of acute malnutrition among children under five years is an objective crisis indicator, reflecting the wider situation of emergency affected populations, including their food security, livelihoods, public health and social environment, say Helen Young and Susanne Jaspars in their paper The Meaning and Measurement of Acute Malnutrition in Emergencies: A Primer For Decision-makers.

According to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 75 per cent of the estimated 241,000 malnourished children in Somalia reside in the volatile southern regions where the country’s internationally recognised Transitional Federal Government is battling a brutal insurgency in the latest iteration of the country’s 20-year civil war. In some of these areas, 1 in 3 children is malnourished, more than double the emergency threshold of 15 per cent.

In August 2010, the national level of acute malnutrition was 15.2 per cent with 16.6 per cent in the south. Five months later the situation had deteriorated in most parts of the country and a national rate of 16 per cent was reported, with 25 per cent in the south. Assessments conducted in April 2011 confirmed a sustained crisis. Complicating the situation in the south even further, Al Qaeda-linked extremist insurgents continue to bar international humanitarian agencies from access to the needy populations, accusing them of promulgating Christianity and Western ideology.

The conflict has also created huge numbers of internally displaced persons. Since January, the UN estimates the drought has added a further 55,000. These are most often the poorest of the poor and it is no coincidence, therefore, that they are suffering disproportionately. While a third of the general population is in crisis, the ratio among IDPs is twice that. In February, 910,000, or 62 per cent of the country’s 146,000 IDPs, were identified by FSNAU as being in crisis. The situation is now driving more people to flee the country altogether, many of them having to walk for up to a month to reach refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.

At the Daadab refugee camp in Kenya, the largest in the world, about 1,300 Somalis are arriving every day, nearly two-thirds of them children. “Nearly every child or parent we have spoken to says they are not just fleeing fighting in Somalia — the drought and food crisis are equally perilous to them now,” Catherine Fitzgibbon, Save the Children’s Kenya programme director, told the BBC.

more at the linkIn 1984, a Kenyan photographer and cameraman named Mohamed Amin shocked the world into... more