UN Declares Official Famine In Somalia

WASHINGTON -- The United Nations has officially declared the food crisis in parts of Somalia a "famine" and reiterated its desperate call for more aid from donor countries.

"If we don't act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks," said Mark Bowden, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, in a statement. "We still do not have all the resources for food, clean water, shelter and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis in desperate need."

Despite the fact that it is commonly used to refer to widespread hunger situations, famine is actually a carefully used term of art in the humanitarian world, indicating that hunger-related deaths have reached 2 per 10,000 per day and acute malnutrition rates are at 30%.

The UN said today that in some of the most-affected parts of Somalia the acute malnutrition rate has reached fifty percent, and 5 children per 10,000 die every day from lack of food.

A famine has not been formally declared since 1984, when conditions in Ethiopia and Somalia caused the deaths of more than a million people.

In a statement released early this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "deeply concerned by the humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa" and pointed to the more than $400 million in aid delivered to the region by the United States.

"But it is not enough," she went on. "The need is only expected to increase and more must be done by the United States and the international community."

There are currently more than 11 million people in need of food aid in the Horn of Africa, where the most severe drought in half a century occurred this spring, nearly wiping out crops that were already depleted.

Rajiv Shah, the head of the US Agency for International Development, visited a refugee camp in Kenya on Wednesday, where thousands of Somalis arrive every day seeking food. He reported horrible conditions among the refugees, especially children.

See HuffPost's growing list of ways you can help Somalia.

Comments

[foresure]

09:26 PM on 08/04/2011

Before my comments, today, August 4, 2011, the most recent comment were from 7-21-11.

I wonder how many have starved since then.

How many unwanted babies have been conceived?

[foresure]

09:01 PM on 08/04/2011

Before everyone starts bashing Muslims, remembers it was the Hindus and Buddhists of Nepal who brough Cholera to Haiti, with of course the great help of the that Christian nation, the United States of America.

Google it if you don't believe me.

[foresure]

08:59 PM on 08/04/2011

I know it is the height of arrogance to refer people to something one has already written, but I feel compelled to.

My posting in four parts, took me about three hours, and that was after I spent a couple of hours refining it on another blog.

If you want to read something "out of the box", neither left or right wing, but seeking a long term solution, read my replies, on "Farmers in Africa, U.S. Eases Rules" It is current on the Huffington Post, or do a HuffPost search for it.

It is about the same subject as this blog.

[Pembrokelib]

08:48 AM on 07/21/2011

How about the Arabian oil billionaires helping? Why always the USA. Famines have taken place since tbe beginning of time. It is tragic, but we can't feed the whole world.

[gardinerda]

05:44 PM on 07/21/2011

BUT....we can try!

[ocbeachbob]

09:39 AM on 08/16/2011

How about the pirates helping out ?

[demsrsilly]

07:36 AM on 07/21/2011

Oh I am sure the benevolent islamic nations in the area will step up and fix this problem that is affecting so many muslims.

[Sasa Milosevic]

05:54 AM on 07/21/2011

USA warning now, but what USA have been doing for years to stop the development of more than tragic poliical sitaution that led Somali people in " food crisis ' ( read: horrible femine). USA now calls donors , but why did not call world to stop civil war that have been killing this country for decades. O what hypocrisis ! Of course, Somaila is " oil-poor". It is not zone of USA economic and political interest.

[PerriCite]

03:11 AM on 07/21/2011

Where's Bono and the "We are the World" crowd. These jokers are making commercials about spending 42 cents to buy pills for aids. These people need condoms.

How about Madonna, Angie and all of their friends adopt a Somali.

$400 million? Aren't there at least 400 celebs that can kick in $1million each. I'm sure there are: Hollywood, athletes, etc. Tom Hanks, Will Ferrel, etc can throw in a couple of million each.

BTW: Aren't these the same people that pirate ships? Perhaps Disney and Johnny Depp could recruit some of them and make another pirate movie: Pirates of The Somali Desert or something.

[Jack Daniels Esq]

02:45 AM on 07/21/2011

Somalia is unsustainable - school kids know that - Useless Nations is a scam, like oil for food ??

[airmax1227]

03:10 AM on 07/21/2011

Somalia is perfectly sustainable... It doesn't take much to have a group of starving citizens with no future these days... It can, and likely will be, sustained forever as long as their are people who are actually alive living on the bare minimum...

Agreed on the UN... which is essentially the 3rd world, offering advice to the 1st, for how to become the 3rd...

[Jack Daniels Esq]

03:30 AM on 07/21/2011

Those people strip & torch countries - they dont care - which is why it is
a desert - ergo unsustainable, or they wouldnt have their begging cap out

[foresure]

09:04 PM on 08/04/2011

airmax:

You are idea, unfortunately is not completely original. In the transcripts of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial you will find the records of a certain highly developed European society trying to figure out the mininumum number of calories needed to keep slaves alive.

You might want to improve your thinking on that by reading their conclusons.

[Jack Daniels Esq]

03:36 AM on 07/21/2011

We keep telling UN to give these people the pill - but they dont listen
If they did listen, the Useless Nations wouldnt have a job anymore - it
is essentially a very expensive soup kitchen feeding foreigners whilst
we neglect our own starving kids in America - how hypocritical is that

[foresure]

09:08 PM on 08/04/2011

Jack:

I fully apprciate that opinions are something everyone has, just like something else.

And I fully appreciate that opinions should never be challenged, for fear of offending anyone.

However, I wonder if you you could back up your opinion of the refusal of people to use birth control, when they have the ability to control their population in an effective and affordable way?

[Dick Stone]

12:39 AM on 07/21/2011

According to Hillary the 400 million in aid to Somalia is just the start, that means we borrowed a minimum of 168 million to provide that just a start. It is amazing how America has got to be the one going into debt to feed everyone around the world, while at the same time destroying the infrastructure of Libya in order to unseat a Leader that has done more for the people of his country than any African nation leader , or any leader of any nation in the greater middle east. Americans need to quit electing politicians that do not always put America first on their priority list, and quit electing politicians that just run around the world spending our money and putting us further into debt.

[This American]

12:57 AM on 07/21/2011

It is actually worse than you describe 100% of all incremental spending is borrowed even tough 40% on average is borrowed because new spending does not cause any growth in revenue. We went out and borrowed that 400m. Your children and grandchildren will have to pay that, and tens of TRILLIONS more.

[Mohamed Yassin]

12:57 AM on 07/21/2011

How old are you?!! you're more gullible than a 4 yr old. Last time i checked we're in a recession here. 400 million in charity? give me a break! don't believe everything you read.

[KMAJ]

05:50 AM on 07/21/2011

"don't believe everything you read."

...including what you just wrote?

[innerpuppie]

12:38 AM on 07/21/2011

People, especially children and the elderly, left to suffer and to starve is contrary to humane thought; however, we have tens of 1000s starving and homeless and without medical care right here as a result of GOP politics, and the numbers are getting worse as the days to by. We need to be showing photos of OUR starving and homeless each and every day across teevee screens and telling folks that they are not looking at a Third World Country - that those folks are just next door.

[dc3dale]

01:43 AM on 07/21/2011

What good will that do? Cheer US up? Certainly I get the point that We should do what little We would do for US, But... Maybe you haven't heard but We're Broke, as in 14+ TRILLION Dollars in the Hole Broke. As in Our Children's, Children will be born into Crushing debt Broke. As in Our "leaders" have US rushing headlong into Third World Country status. BOTH "parties" are Responsible to a degree that I find Traitorous.

It's always been the time to have personal responsibility, due to the govs Stunning Incompetence, many of US will soon be experiencing it for the first time though. Can you get by without a gov handout (Our Money, heavily skimmed and given mostly to others)? Forget about the gov saving your rear, History shows, again and again, that the weak/poor will be the first thrown under the bus by an ever increasing desperate gov, it's going to try to keep itself going, to hell with the Citizens. Your focus will narrow to the point of Family and Friends, if that. Are you ready?

[innerpuppie]

02:16 AM on 07/21/2011

Talk about personal responsibility to America's starving children and elderly then come back and tell me what you think.

[foresure]

09:14 PM on 08/04/2011

dc3dale

Maybe I an wrong, but maybe it would cost less than $1,000,000,000 to teach 20% of the market women in the third world to sell birth control pills, and let them make a profit doing it.

Please read my posting in the Huffington Post of "Farmers in Africa U.S. Eases Rules" Its current as of today, or search it in Huff Post search.

[Tom Coleman]

12:16 AM on 07/21/2011

Stop wasting US tax payers money (more than $400 million in aid delivered to the region by the United States), on a lost cause...and I agree with that guy who said, "I was sadden to see US soldiers killed, mutilated and dragged through the streets by the very same people that those US soldiers were deployed to help. They didn't want to be in that sh%t hole buy they were ordered to help that 3rd world nightmare out and look at the thanks the USA gets!

[Tom Coleman]

12:08 AM on 07/21/2011

Hey, why don't their Muslim brethern who are awash in Billions of petro dollars, why don't they help out, huh....You got some Arab prince named HAMAD who just purchase a private island, I'm sure he could spare a few hundred million dollars?

[Jack Daniels Esq]

02:48 AM on 07/21/2011

Because muslims are hypocrites

[Fred Ricardo]

02:30 PM on 07/21/2011

Like jews who steal West Bank land while saying they want to talk?

[foresure]

09:15 PM on 08/04/2011

Jack

But the do-gooding American aren't. They managed to arrange for the introduction of Cholera into Haiti. A disease that was unknown there.

[dc3dale]

12:00 AM on 07/21/2011

Hey hilary,

I respect your right to believe as you will but, in a nutshell, you're what's wrong with this World/Country.

I work harder/smarter and so I have more, I should give so a lazy man can be "evens" with me? I should give to People that take no responsibility for their own actions? Me? Who's own gov racially discriminates against (the joke called "affirmative action")??? Gee, have five kids that you can't feed? How would you have the gall to expect me to support them? No thanks, nice try to abdicate Your Responsibility, very revealing. Me, who thinks that you should be arrested/shot for easily foreseeable Child Abuse.

I'd be more inclined to help the Japanese than the Somali's even though their situation isn't as bad because their situation isn't perpetually "desperate". The Japanese took a real hammerblow, they will be dealing with the consequences for decades, Wanna bet against them recovering? You could just give them a hook and line, they know how to "fish". You wouldn't have to keep going back to "help" them INFINITELY. Fortunately the Japanese will be able to dig themselves out of their mess.

We've got to get Our house in order. Maybe We should just try to find one Really Rich Guy to support 300,000,000+ worthless F--ks here in this Country? He can take Responsibility from/for all of US.

More and More I "get" "Atlas Shrugged".

[foresure]

09:20 PM on 08/04/2011

dc3dake

Like all good conservative Americans you feel overworked and underpaid, while you consume most of the world's resources, and pay workers in the third world $1.00 a day so they can try to ward off starvation.

You are the great kind of American that the star of Blazing Saddles described to Clevon Little.

[peacespy]

02:35 PM on 08/05/2011

I would guess that a Somali farmer would have worked harder in a month to eke out an existence for his family than you have worked in your entire lifetime. People are truly blessed and lucky to be born in a country where the climate is such that life is sustainable. It is easy to sit there obese and well fed and decide that someone else can just starve! Try reading "The Poisonwood Bible" and you will get a feeling for how difficult farming can be in Africa even when water is plentiful.

[foresure]

08:29 PM on 08/05/2011

peacespy

I love he cliche "eke". Shows a lot of thought.

Ever consider thoughts outside those inside your head?

[iriatv]

11:57 PM on 07/20/2011

Remember Operation Restore Hope, O that's right most of you weren't even born. Open mouth Insert combat boot.

[Justice76]

11:57 PM on 07/20/2011

Unless we have lived in a nation with such tremendous poverty, no one in the U.S. (myself included) could imagine what it's like to experience such horrific conditions.

It is unbelievably callous and absolutely absurd to simply say "stop breeding", or "take birth control". Was this the advice given to American women during the Great Depression? Should Irish women have just "stopped breeding" and used birth control during the Great Famine (even though doing so would have violated their religious and cultural beliefs)?

And where are these women supposed to access birth control? They can't even access clean water! Instead of criticizing and attacking these people, why not pretend, for a moment, that we are all a part of the human race, and try to be a little constructive.

[foresure]

09:22 PM on 08/04/2011

Justice76

For an inexpensive, doable way to provide birth control in the third world read my three part reply in "Farmers in Africa U.S. Eases Rules"

Tell me why it couldn't work!!