The United Nations estimates that tens of thousands of people have died from malnutrition in Somalia in recent months, and over 11 million people across East Africa need food aid because of a long-running drought. The U.N. 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 south and central parts of the country in search of food.
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," said Luca Alinovi, 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-hit 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. 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."
The U.N.'s humanitarian coordination office 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 to those in need. The global body says it has received $1.1 billion, or about 46 percent of the $2.4 billion requested from donor countries. The U.N.'s deputy emergency relief coordinator Catherine Bragg appealed to the international community for $1.3 billion to urgently save lives. "Every day counts," she told the U.N. Security Council. "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."
According to the U.N.'s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, "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," Bragg said. "We have not yet seen the peak of the crisis as further deterioration is considered likely given the very high levels of both severe acute malnutrition and under-5 mortality in combination with an expectation of a continued increase in local cereal prices, and a below-average rainy season harvest," she said.
More
U.N. fears rise in Somalia famine refugees - USATODAY.com
