enca.com
MOGADISHU – There are warnings that another famine is looming in Somalia, if the international community doesn’t act quickly.
Between 2010 to 2012 it’s estimated that more than a quarter of a million people in the Horn of Africa died as a result of famine.
Half of them were children under five years old.
The number of people who died from famine in Somalia during that period was actually higher than the number who died in the 1992 famine. And now, almost unbelievably, aid agencies are warning once again of a looming food crisis.
“The world is failing Somalia, again. We have 50,000 children at death’s door. The humanitarian response is grossly underfunded and this is coming at a time when there is drought again in some areas,” said Geno Teofilo of Oxfam.
“The growing season isn’t going well. More funding is needed to help prevent the situation from worsening in the next few months.”
OXFAM and other NGO’s say the international community hasn’t learnt lessons from 2011 — that it’s better and cheaper to prevent a famine, than to try fix it once it’s happening.
In August 2011, eNCA followed the Ilmo family as they walked thousands of kilometres to escape the famine that devastated much of the central part of the country. eNCA’s East Africa Bureau Chief Robyn Kriel reports – see her video package in tha gallery above.
