UN says part of Somalia will reach famine later this year
Associated PressMOGADISHU, Somalia — The United Nations says “famine is at the door” in Somalia with “concrete indications” famine will occur later this year in the southern Bay region. “I couldn’t get out of my head the tiny mounds of ground marking children’s graves,” UNICEF’s deputy regional director Rania Dagash said last week. And so many people were arriving each day.” At the same time, aid funding has dropped more than 60% from the response to Somalia’s previous drought in 2017, USAID administrator Samantha Power said last week, noting a “degree of despair and devastation” not seen before in her career. “In Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, we are on the brink of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.” The rainfall in this year’s failed March-to-May season was the lowest in the last six decades, Artan told the AP. Somalia’s recently elected president, however, appointed a drought envoy in one of his first acts, which Griffiths called “impressive.” Because of the remote nature of Somalia’s drought, and with some hard-hit areas under the control of the al-Shabab extremist group which has been hostile to humanitarian efforts, no one knows how many people have died — or will in the months to come.