300,000 children starving in Horn of Africa

More than 300,000 children in the Horn of Africa are at risk of dying, the UNICEF says.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194768.html

UNICEF says more than 300,000 children in the Horn of Africa suffer severe malnutrition and are in imminent risk of dying due to the worst drought and famine in decades.

UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said on Friday that the crisis in the Horn of Africa is “a human disaster becoming a human catastrophe,” the Associated Press reported.

In Somalia alone, around 1.4 million children are affected, an estimated 390,000 are suffering from malnutrition, and nearly 140,000 in the south-central region are facing imminent death from “severe acute malnutrition,” Lake added.

According to the United Nations, tens of thousands of people have already died in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea, and more than 12 million people in the region need food aid.

UNICEF has also said the combination of malnutrition, lack of clean water, and poor sanitation, along with the rush of thousands of people into the Somali capital Mogadishu in search of food, have had terrible consequences.

“There is no need for a child to die of diarrhea, yet this is a tragic reality for a Somali child, who is acutely malnourished. It is a lethal combination,” UNICEF Representative for Somalia Rozanne Chorlton said.

'Horn of Africa famine manmade'

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194347.html

The famine in the Horn of Africa is a result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict than natural and environmental causes, a World Bank's expert says.

"This crisis is manmade," said lead economist for Kenya Wolfgang Fengler in a phone interview with Reuters on Tuesday. "Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policymaking for that to lead to a famine."

The price of maize, or corn, was significantly higher in east Africa than in the rest of the world due to controls on local food markets, he noted. "Maize is cheaper in the United States and in Germany than it is in eastern Africa.”

"In Kenya, the price for corn is 60 to 70 percent above the world average at the moment," Fengler added. "A small number of farmers are controlling the market which is keeping prices artificially high."

The World Bank President Robert Zoellick had also warned that global food prices, which have reached near record highs, are threatening the lives of the poorest people around the globe.

Food prices around the world were 33 percent higher this July than in 2010, while oil prices have climbed 45 percent, ramping up the price of fertilizers, Zoellick said on Monday.

The drought and famine have affected more than 11.8 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Somalia has been the hardest-hit country in what is being described as the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years.

Over the last three months, reportedly 29,000 children under the age of five have died of malnutrition and starvation in Somalia while the lives of 600,000 children in the region remain at risk, the bank has revealed.

"Persistently high food prices and low food stocks indicate that we're still in the danger zone, with the most vulnerable people the least able to cope," World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced in a statement.

He also warned of the high volatility in goods markets, calling for international alertness to the possibility of widening crisis.

UN declares famine in south Somalia

Refugees and children wait to go to a refugee camp in the Ethiopian town of Dolo Ado, about 1 kilometer north of the border with Somalia, July 9, 2011.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/189948.html

The United Nations has declared famine in two parts of southern Somalia as a severe drought is affecting more than 10 million people in the Horn of Africa.

"The United Nations declared today that famine exists in two regions of southern Somalia: southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle," a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia said on Wednesday.

The two regions have been affected by drought, conflict and poverty as tens of thousands of Somalis have already died in the worst hunger emergency in more than half a century.

Tens of thousands of desperate people are trying to flee their country to neighboring Kenya or Ethiopia.

The Kenyan Camp Dadaab has been overflowing with newly-arrived refugees who are forced into the camp due to the persisting drought and famine in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Officials have warned that famine could spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months unless urgent action is taken.

The UK-based charity group Oxfam has criticized the European governments over their slow response to the drought in the Horn of Africa.

Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia remains one of the countries generating the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP) in the world.

The United Nations refugee agency reported in April that the number of Somali refugees arriving in neighboring countries during the first quarter of 2011 has more than doubled in comparison to the same period in 2010.