Charity President Says Aid Groups Are Misleading Public On Somalia

The Guardian:

The head of an international medical charity has called on aid agencies to stop presenting a misleading picture of the famine in Somalia and admit that helping the worst-affected people is almost impossible.

Read the whole story: The Guardian

Comments

[eddy joe]

07:19 AM on 09/06/2011

A heart breaking picture, and a soul wrenching problem.

[IATSE MEMBER]

01:42 AM on 09/06/2011

And yet Kanye West and Jay-Z proudly Auctioned Off a Mutilated $373000 Maybach for Charity?

[VoiceofV]

09:09 AM on 09/05/2011

Too bad Somalian children aren't Wallstreet Bankers.

We always seem to find a way to help them.

[Candide33]

03:16 AM on 09/05/2011

At least they were honest, billions of dollars a year go to con artists posing as charities. Even when food is delivered it is just stolen by the warlords and sold on the black market.

[mphalen]

01:34 AM on 09/05/2011

Tell me again that there is a god.

[loki]

02:14 AM on 09/05/2011

If there is, its obvious he , or she, or it, gave up on us.

[Topaz4608]

01:03 AM on 09/05/2011

I absolutely believe there is enough wealth in this world, that every one should be able to eat. The world needs a redistribution of wealth, in a big way, so we don't have to look at pictures of 3 year olds starving to death. Life can be so unfair. One little girl is born into a world of Gucci handbags, and $500 shoes. Another little girl starves to death.

[loki]

02:20 AM on 09/05/2011

You just dont understand. Sociopaths dont care if that girls, or anyone dies. Just as long as they can fill their need for greed of wealth and power, they actually believe everything else is right and just in the world, and this is only due to the fault of other people. Sociopaths make the best, so called, Best Capitalist, and they have become the most powerful and richest over the last 30 years. They dont care, they dont feel, they dont see anything except that everyone and everything else is standing between them, and the immense wealth they feel they are entitled too. Sure, the world could be a much better place for everyone, if the sociopaths were not able to take over what was once capitalism and governments, and convert them into their own private slush fund. Just think, the majority of the globes poverty, suffering and death, is all initiated and embraced by a very small but rich and power group of Sociopaths. Itsnt that just wonderful?

[Rebecca Mendez]

02:22 PM on 09/06/2011

Greed should be considered a disorder. How can people live with themselves and not be ashamed of having so much while others have so little? How?? This breaks my soul.

[cira23]

12:30 AM on 09/05/2011

A picture is worth a thousand words. Those poor people.

[liberalmyers]

11:47 PM on 09/04/2011

I'm a grown 51 year old man and this article made me just cry.The tragedy in this world that people have to endure,women,children due to no fault of their own.It saddens me completely,makes alot of these other threads seem so obsolete by comparison.I'm an agnostic,but GOD bless these people.

[glace]

12:13 AM on 09/05/2011

The same here, I was about to cry when I saw the picture. It's just sad.

[jinsei]

11:19 PM on 09/04/2011

I was born in the DRC to American parents working for the Zairian government (nothing to do with aid organizations). My mother would have to buy food on the black market, and guess what ended up there: bags stamped with the word USAID.

[sharmaine73]

10:34 PM on 09/04/2011

This breaks my heart. I had a tough life as a kid. Foster care, endured abuse, but I still had a chance to grow up, and make a better life for myself. I hardly ever went hungry. My shoes may have had holes in the soles but they were shoes. I may have had to eat beans and rice for dinner or get a meager share of what was available, but I ate. In a world with so much food and wealth, there is no reason for this suffering and yet it exists. For this reason I want to spend time in Africa and other parts of the world helping children who have LESS than nothing. They have less than what I started out with, and without help there is little hope for them. I will always be an advocate for American foster youth, but the children of third world, and war torn countries will always be at the forefront of my mind and I pray god reveals to me a way that I can help as many of them as possible.

[tnlcallen]

10:29 PM on 09/04/2011

Very sad indeed. When Jesus talked about "The Poor" these were the kind of people he was talking about, not the people in this country on the government dole.

[sharmaine73]

11:20 PM on 09/04/2011

I hope you're referring to corporations and banks who accept bailouts. Not just everyday working schmoes trying to eke out a living in this economy. Everyone should give a little bit more and expect a little bit less in order to help our fellow countrymen get through tough economic times. This should be done willingly and without complaint, recognizing that our contributions are there for everyone and if we never have to ask for the help we are truly blessed and should thank the Lord that but for the grace of God, there go I.

[MaryfromIL]

12:52 AM on 09/05/2011

There are many people in this country that are hungry. There are also 46,000 people in this country that die due to lack of healthcare.

There are degrees of poor. The people in those picture are in a living hell. That doesn't negate the problems of the poor here.

[Chockolate]

10:05 PM on 09/04/2011

I have a personality defect where I'm unable to feel empathy for humans, hence my micro-bio. That might make me seem heartless, but it also means I can view this situation without emotions getting in the way.

Aid has proven to be a very poor use of money in Africa. In the last 30 years it hasn't helped things one little bit, instead the place has gotten worse and worse. We can't help these people because without a lot of troops on the ground the money/food/water wont get to them anyway. So short term aid is not an option without a massive security presence, which in itself is hardly an option either. Long term aid has proven itself to be like heroin, proving a short term buzz while dooming the recipient.

That is why I say end all aid, end it now.

[Your Mother]

11:10 PM on 09/04/2011

But think of the children.

[MaryfromIL]

12:56 AM on 09/05/2011

Why are you looking at depriving the less fortunate in the world, and not looking at corporations taxed at 2.3% on foreign earnings? Or the $4 billion a year in Oil subsidies? Or anyone of a hundred other places.

The US isn't collapsing because of foreign aid, much of which goes to preserve our own safety. It's less than 1% of our budget, $92 a year per American, a much smaller percent of our national income that other developed countries give.

# Less than half of aid from the United States goes to the poorest countries, less than $46 per American.

# The largest recipients are strategic allies such as Egypt, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

# Israel is the richest country to receive U.S. assistance ($77 per Israeli compared to $3 per person in poor countries)

http://masbury.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/what-percent-of-us-budget-goes-to-foreign-aid/

[Topaz4608]

01:09 AM on 09/05/2011

Very good post. Very little US foreign aid is meant to help starving children. Oligarchies don't care about poor people.

[glace]

09:53 PM on 09/04/2011

Some have too much to eat, some have nothing to eat.

Yesterday it was a picture of a woman whose goal was to reach a 1,000 pound (you can call it a su.icidal eating contest). Today it is a picture an infant who's so hungry, he's probably close to his last moments on this earth.

[Robert Galyean]

09:14 PM on 09/04/2011

When I see pictures like this it makes me reflect on articles like the one yesterday of the world's fattest mom. Makes her look evil. I guess that's why they say gluttony is a sin.

[tnlcallen]

10:27 PM on 09/04/2011

Reminds me of a South Park Episode with Sally Struthers.

[Robert Galyean]

10:28 PM on 09/04/2011

Classic episode.

[a6intruder]

09:04 PM on 09/04/2011

There is nothing so sad or hurtful or frustrating as a picture of a child starving to death or sick with a preventable disease. But the fact that the people "living in a desert", in the words of Sam Kinniston, can't produce enough to support their population or generate enough wealth to purchase what they need is the root cause of the problem. Before armed borders, these people would have migrated to a neighboring area where they could survive, fighting any existing residents for all - or even an adequate share - of the produce. But not now. Now, they're forced to sit and starve and die despite all that the sympathetic world can do for them. It's pure sadness.