NAIROBI, Kenya – On average, one severely malnourished child is admitted to a clinic in Somalia every minute every day. With crops and livestock destroyed in worst drought Covering the country for four decades, millions of Somalis are on the brink of famine in an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.
According to interviews with government officials, aid workers and analysts familiar with internal government deliberations, the Somali government has for months been reluctant to declare that the country is facing serious problems. face hunger.
Aid workers say such an announcement would allow more aid to flow in – as happened during the 2011 famine – and attract the attention of Western donors, who is now more focused on responding to fallout from the war in Ukraine.
Government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, came to power in May, was against the designation for several reasons. First and foremost, the fledgling government fears it will undermine the public interest it enjoys and fall into the hands of the Al Shabab terrorist group, just as the military launched a large-scale attack. against the insurgents who made the country difficult. for decades and still launching devastating attacks.
The Somali government is also concerned that the declaration of famine will spur an exodus of people from the affected areas to major cities and towns, stretching already meager resources and making increase in crime.
And they worry that the famine declaration will deter investors and divert international aid money for emergency response — rather than long-term development money to fund health care, education, and health programs. education and climate resilience.
President acknowledged the dilemma in September, said, “The risk is very high to announce a famine.”
Such claims, he said, “not only affect the victims of the famine, but stop development and change attitudes and everything.”
Over the past few weeks, frustrated aid workers have insisted the threshold of famine has been reached in some areas and have pushed the government in several meetings to declare a famine to attract the attention of the public. crisis.
The famine emergency affects not only Somalia, a country with a population of 16 million, but an estimated 37 million in the Horn of Africa. One of the main drivers of the crisis is climate change, which is at the heart of climate summit called COP27begins on Sunday in Egypt.
Aid workers in Somalia fear a repeat of what happened in 2011, when more half of the nearly 260,000 people died in the famine did so before it was officially declared.
“The government is afraid of the letter F – it’s famine,” said one aid worker, who asked not to be named. “But the situation is dire and the longer they wait, the worse it gets.”
Abdirahman Abdishakur, the president’s special envoy for drought response, acknowledged that aid agencies had pushed the government to declare the famine but denied that the government was hesitant to do so. He said that there is no concrete evidence that the thresholds for such a crisis have been crossed. He also said rich nations should honor their commitments to help poor countries like Somalia deal with the impacts of the climate crisis.
Mr. Abdishakur, who was visit western capitals to raise awareness of the situation, said in a phone interview. “It’s also about justice.”
A group of experts assessment of hunger made a determination on Somalia but did not declare a famine.
A possible famine point if 20 percent of households in an area face severe food shortages, if 30 percent of children there are acutely malnourished, and if two out of every 10,000 adults adults or four children die of hunger every day. While experts can categorize a famine and humanitarian organizations can warn of it, the final decision to declare a famine rests with a country’s government and UN agencies. .
Mohamed Husein Gaas, director of the Raad Institute for Peace Studies in the capital Mogadishu, said that by pushing back against the famine claim, Somali officials wanted to buy time and hoped that the needed funding would eventually materialize. real.
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“But that’s not a good policy,” Gaas said. “We need to move quickly and save lives.”
Nimo Hassan, director of the Somali Government Agricultural Organizations Association, said technical definitions of famine should not be an excuse for inaction.
She added: “The situation is beyond resources and you are trying to provide drip water to people who need to drink water.
The final assessment of the situation in Somalia, published in September, predicts that famine will occur in two counties in the southern Gulf region between October and December, and severe drought conditions will persist into early next year.
In hard-hit areas of Somalia, famine could soon be declared. UN experts have just finished collecting data on the drought situation and are now analyzing it ahead of the release of the results in mid-November – a move that could prompt authorities to issue a major statement. awareness of hunger.
Nearly a million Somalis live in inaccessible areas – including under Al Shabab – and the reviewers estimated that conditions there similar, if not worse than, the areas for which the data was collected.
Shabab control over large areas of southern Somalia exacerbated the famine in 2011and at the end of October, the United Nations begged the group to allow unregulated access to aid agencies to help drought-stricken Somalis.
Aid agencies say that since September, when the United Nations said famine had “closed” in Somalia, international funding has increased, especially from the United States. But experts say fundraising efforts aren’t growing as fast as they should, and donors should have responded with last year’s early warnings to prevent massive deaths and displacement now. hours.
“The question we should all ask ourselves is about the magnitude of the loss of lives, not whether they are being lost,” said Daniel Maxwell, professor of food security at Tufts University and a fellow. Are we an inch or an inch below some threshold,” said Daniel Maxwell, a professor of food security at Tufts University and a fellow. of the Somali Famine Assessment Committee. “The calls for response are now as clear as ever.”
Extreme weather events, some linked to climate change, have devastated Somalia in recent years, leading to recurring drought, hunger, poverty and internal displacement. The country will face the fifth consecutive poorest rainy season in its history, limiting farmers’ ability to raise livestock or grow crops.
Crop failure, supply disruption due to the pandemic and the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can more than three times the cost of certain staple foods in some areas. And because the drought has lasted longer and affected more people and areas than it did in 2011, experts are also concerned that more people can die overtime.
Across Somalia, clinics and hospitals treating malnourished children are reporting double or triple the number of cases from last year, even as the price of the peanut-based powder used to combat malnutrition has increased by 23%, according to the United Nations children’s agency. More than half a million children are at risk of death, The United Nations has warned“A Pending Nightmare” is unlike any other seen in this century.
As drought tightens its grip on Somalia, authorities have also declare full war on Al Shabab with the support of the local clan militia. Some critics say authorities should focus on saving lives first and that the latest attack will only create more displacement.
However, Mr. Abdishakur, special envoy, defending the government’s military operations, said that Al Shabab had contributed to suffering by blowing up wells and extorting money and tax the common people.
Now, aid workers say they are racing against time to get more undead Somalis on track as they did in 2011.
Hassan, the leader of the Somali NGO, said: “One child death is too many, let alone hundreds.
Declan WalshReporting contributions from Mogadishu, Somalia.
