It's the Somali version of Survivor.
"Thousands feared dead in Somali famine" July 21, 2011|Associated Press
NAIROBI - Tens of thousands of Somalis are feared dead in the world’s worst famine in a generation, the United Nations said yesterday, and the United States said it will allow emergency funds to be spent in areas controlled by Al Qaeda-linked militants as long as the fighters do not interfere with aid distribution.
Then tell the CIA to call them off.
Exhausted, rail-thin women are stumbling into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia with dead babies and bleeding feet, having left weaker family members behind along the way....
The crisis is the worst since 1991-92, when hundreds of thousands of Somalis starved to death, Bowden said. That famine prompted intervention by an international peacekeeping force, but it eventually pulled out after two American Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in 1993.
And I cynically suspect that is why Somalia all of a sudden popped up in my paper.
Since then, Western nations have mainly sought to contain the threat of terrorism from Somalia - an anarchic nation where the weak government battles Islamic militants on land and pirates hijack ships for millions of dollars at sea....
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"Militants in Somalia reject aid groups; Massive famine threatens lives of 800,000 kids" July 23, 2011|By Abdi Guled, Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia vowed to keep most international aid workers out of the country despite a worsening famine, and the UN warned yesterday that 800,000 children could die in the region from starvation.
That sure is a way to win over people.
What it looks like to me is the same CIA warlord thugs that Islamists ran out in 2006 (only to removed by a U.S-sponsored Ethiopian coup after 6 months) are now being called "Al-CIA-Duh"-linked Shabab.
Frustrated aid groups said they want to deploy more food assistance in Somalia but do not have the necessary safety guarantees to do so. The anarchic country has been mired in conflict for two decades and its capital is a war zone....
The UN fears tens of thousands of people have died in the famine, which has forced Somalis to walk for days to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia....
Internally displaced Somalis have been heading to the capital. The number of Somalis who arrived in Mogadishu this month - 21,100 - is more than four times the number that arrived in June and more than 10 times the number that arrived in May, according to the UN.
UNICEF, one of the few groups that does operate in Al Shabab-controlled areas, said it will deliver “unprecedented supplies’’ across the region.
“If we are to save lives, we need to act now, to bring in massive quantities of medicines, vaccines, nutrition supplies into the region as quickly as we are able and then get them out to the children who need it most,’’ said Shanelle Hall, director of UNICEF’s supply division.
Somalia is the most dangerous country in the world to work in, according to the UN’s World Food Program, which has lost 14 relief workers in the past few years. WFP pulled out of Islamist-controlled southern Somalia after rebels demanded cash payments and other concessions.
Al Shabab began to ban aid agencies in 2009, fearing the groups could host spies or promote a way of life contrary to Islamic beliefs.
Earlier this month, Al Shabab appeared to indicate it would soften its stance amid the hunger crisis.
But yesterday, spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said the UN’s declaration of famine in parts of Somalia this week is politically motivated and “pure propaganda.’’
The famine is real enough; those other things are just side dishes.
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The United Nations estimates that more 11 million people in East Africa are affected by the drought, with 3.7 million in Somalia among the worst-hit because of the ongoing civil war in the country....
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"US, Europe urged to do more to ward off severe famine in parched Somalia" July 25, 2011|Associated Press
DOLO, Somalia - Somalia’s famine will be five times worse by Christmas unless the international community increases its food aid, Australia’s foreign minister said yesterday during a visit to Somalia, even as the international Red Cross distributed 400 tons of food into hard-to-reach areas of the south.
Kevin Rudd was in Somalia’s famine-struck area of Dolo to appeal to the world to help avoid a catastrophe. During his visit hundreds of women with small children in tow massed around a World Food Program sign-up table. Rudd talked with internal refugees who have had little to eat in recent days....
The United States last week announced it was giving an additional $28 million in emergency funding on top of the $431 million in assistance already given this year.
Not that I don't want to give it; however, I no longer trust government assistance because so much is stolen. Besides, we have a hunger problem here in Amerika and we are broke.
Rudd suggested that the US and Europe should do more to avoid a massive number of deaths, despite the financial hardships those regions are experiencing.
Maybe we could stop the missile strikes for a while.
“The reason we do it is it’s part of who we are,’’ Rudd said. “Part of America’s great standing around the world since World War II is its combination of hard power and soft power… . US aid given around the world helps their standing in the world. It’s part of the American greatness that we’ve seen.’’
Sorry, but the torture and mass-murder based on lies put our standing in the dumper.
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"UN races to get food to Somali refugees; Airlift aiming to help 175,000 in remote zones" July 26, 2011|By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press
DOLO, Somalia - The UN will airlift emergency rations this week to parts of drought-ravaged Somalia that militants banned it from more than two years ago - a crisis intervention to keep hungry refugees from dying along what an official called the “roads of death.’’
The foray into the famine zone is a desperate attempt to reach at least 175,000 of the 2.2 million Somalis whom aid workers have not been able to help.
Tens of thousands have trekked to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, hoping to get aid in refugee camps.
Some - like Isaac Bulle and his family - have nearly nothing left.
“I hope we can cross to Ethiopia, but if we can get help here, we will stay here,’’ said Bulle, who traveled with his two wives and 14 children for 25 days by donkey cart to reach this border town. “Our aim is just to get food. Not to leave the country.’’
Restarting the aid effort is a huge challenge for the World Food Program, whose workers were previously banned from the region by the Al Qaeda-linked militant group Al Shabab. Fourteen program employees have been killed in Somalia since 2008. New land mines have severed a key road to Dolo. A landing strip has fallen into disrepair. Old employees must be found and rehired.
The new feeding efforts in the four districts of southern Somalia near the border with Kenya and Ethiopia are expected to begin by Thursday, slowing the flow of tens of thousands of people who have fled their homes in hope of reaching aid.
The UN said two regions of Somalia are suffering from famine and that 11 million people are in need of aid. But as of Aug. 1, the UN is set to declare all of southern Somalia - including Dolo - a famine zone.
In Rome, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said a coordination conference would be held tomorrow in Kenya.
The UN is pressing its efforts to gather $1.6 billion in aid in the next 12 months, with $300 million of that coming in the next three months.
Ertharin Cousin, the US ambassador to the UN’s Rome-based food agencies, told reporters she didn’t immediately know if the United States would boost its contribution on top of what it has given.
Last week, the US pledged an additional $28 million in aid for the drought crisis on top of more than $431 million in emergency assistance to the Horn of Africa this year.
New aid will reach Dolo this week. The program is sending 5 tons of high energy bars by emergency airlift Thursday. More food will follow by land.
The program halted its operation in southern Somalia in January 2009 after Al Shabab forced it out.
After the militants were driven out of some areas in an offensive this year by the African Union force - with an assist from allied militias and Ethiopian troops - the front line has moved back far enough that the program can reenter....
The program’s executive director, Josette Sheeran, visited hunger zones in Somalia and Kenya in the last week. She recounted how refugee mothers told her they had to leave children behind to die on the road because they were too weak to walk farther, underscoring how urgently aid is needed inside militant-controlled areas....
Yves Van Loo, the International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman for the Somali delegation, said his group has not had trouble distributing aid because it highlights its neutrality when it seeks permission to enter a region.
Program officials, though, admit the difficulties they face in Somalia and say some corruption of food aid could take place. Stefano Poretti, the Somalia country director for the food program, said there are enough controls in place to ensure it “will reduce the risk of misuse.’’
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who traveled to Dolo on Sunday with Sheeran, said the move into the wilds of Somalia “will not be a perfect humanitarian operation.’’
But he added that the images of children slowly deteriorating are requiring world governments to act now.
Not that the Somalis do not deserve the help, they do; however, world governments don't seem to react the same way when it is Palestinian children.
Al Shabab indicated early this month it would let banned aid agencies back, but changed course last week and even denied that a famine is taking place.
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"Food aid airlifted for Somali children" July 28, 2011|Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia - A plane carrying 10 tons of urgently needed nutritional supplements to treat malnourished children has landed in famine-hit Somalia, a UN official said yesterday.
The airlift to Mogadishu is part of a crisis intervention as famine threatens to spread across lawless Somalia....
A drought has created a triangle of hunger where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia meet. The World Food Program estimates more than 11.3 million people need aid across drought-hit regions. The majority of those affected live in pastoral communities whose herds have been wiped out because of a lack of water.
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"FIGHTING FOR NOURISHMENT -- A refugee fed her malnourished child yesterday using a nasogastric tube at an aid hospital in a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, near the Somalia border. Somalia's famine is unfolding in a war zone, greatly complicating international relief efforts. African Union troops fought house-to-house battles yesterday with militants of the Al-Qaeda linked group Al Shabab, trying to clear space for aid groups bringing in food supplies (Boston Globe July 29 2011)."
"Heavy rains add to misery of famine refugees in Somalia" August 01, 2011|Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Tens of thousands of famine-stricken Somali refugees were cold and drenched after torrential rains pounded their makeshift structures in the capital, as the UN raised concerns yesterday that renewed conflict in the country may jeopardize relief work.
Rains are needed to plant crops and alleviate the drought that has lead to famine in Somalia, but the downpour added to the misery of many refugees who live in structures made of sticks, flattened milk cans, and pieces of cloth.
Disgruntled refugees in several camps in Mogadishu said that more aid is needed....
Aid agencies have limited reach in Somalia, where Islamist militants are waging an insurgency against the country’s weak, UN-backed government.
The most dangerous group among the militants - the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab- has barred major relief organizations from operating in the territories it controls.
The UN fears tens of thousands already have died in Somalia in areas held by the Islamist rebels because food aid could not reach them.
The African Union peacekeeping force anticipates that Al Shabab may try to attack the camps that now house tens of thousands of famine refugees in Mogadishu, disrupting even further the distribution of food aid.
The drought and the famine it has caused in Somalia have affected more than 11.5 million people in the Horn of Africa and created a triangle of hunger where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia meet.
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"Famine stalks Somali refugees; Deprivation is acute in holy month of fasting" by Malkhadir M. Muhumed, Associated Press / August 2, 2011
DADAAB, Kenya - As the Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins, Faduma Aden is fasting during the day even though she does not have enough food to celebrate with a sundown feast.
The Somali mother of three, who fled starvation in her homeland and now lives at a Kenyan refugee camp, says she will fast because she fears God.
Muslims around the world mark sundown during the holy month of Ramadan that began yesterday with extravagant dinners after not eating from sunrise to sundown. That kind of nighttime celebration is unthinkable this year for most Somalis, who are already suffering empty stomachs during the worst famine in a generation.
Despite the lack of food, for Somalis like Aden it is a matter of faith to participate in Ramadan’s fast, even though Islam allows the ailing to eat. Others, though, are ashamed that they do not have enough food for the sundown dinner.
“How I will fast when I don’t have something to break it?’’ said Mohamed Mohamud Abdulle. “Today is the worst day I ever faced. All my family are hungry, and I have nothing to feed them. I feel the hunger that forced me from my home has doubled here.’’
Tens of thousands of Somalis have already fled starvation to the world’s largest refugee camp in neighboring Kenya, where Abdulle said people cannot fast without food “to console the soul’’ at sundown.
For most of the Muslim world, Ramadan falls this year at a time of rising food prices and political upheaval. Food prices typically spike during the Muslim religious month, and the elaborate dinners many in the Middle East put on to break the daily fast drive a deep hole in household budgets.
Somalis fleeing famine say they have been unintentionally fasting for weeks or months, but without the end-of-day meal to regain their strength.
“I cannot fast because I cannot get food to break it and eat before the morning,’’ said Nur Ahmed, a father of six at a camp in Mogadishu called Badbado. Ahmed’s wife died last year during childbirth, he said.
Sheik Ali Sheik Hussein, a mosque leader in Mogadishu, called it worrying that many Somalis cannot fast because they do not have the food to break it with.
“We have asked all Muslims to donate to help those dying from hunger,’’ he said. “Muslims should not be silent on this situation, so we shall help if Allah wills.’’
President Obama, in a statement yesterday for Ramadan, said that fasting can be used to “increase spirituality, discipline, and consciousness of God’s mercy.’’
Obama said now is a time for the world to come together to offer support for famine relief.
Maybe he could send 'em a $71,600 plate. Or maybe the UN could have them over for lunch.
“The heartbreaking accounts of lost lives and the images of families and children in Somalia and the Horn of Africa struggling to survive remind us of our common humanity and compel us to act,’’ Obama said.
Some in the communities around the Dadaab refugee camps have already followed that advice by helping hungry refugees moving into the region....
In a bit of good news, though....
The Globe always finds the kernel of corn in a turd.
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"RAVAGES OF FAMINE -- A Somali man and his daughter waited with other refugees in line yesterday at a registration center in Dagahaley after having been displaced from their home. An estimated 3.7 million people in the country, about a third of the population, are on the brink of starvation, straining aid agencies trying to cope with the daily influx. At the same time, some predatory border guards are making the trek even more dangerous for those who flee (Boston Globe July 29 2011)."
"Somalia’s famine is spreading, UN warns" August 04, 2011|By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press
NAIROBI - The United Nations declared three new regions in Somalia famine zones yesterday, expanding the area where the highest rates of malnutrition and mortality are taking place, including the refugee camps in the capital of Mogadishu.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said that famine is likely to spread across all regions of Somalia’s south in the next four to six weeks and may persist until December.
In Somalia, 3.7 million people are in crisis, the UN said, out of a population of 7.5 million. The UN said 3.2 million need immediate, lifesaving assistance.
The UN said the prevalence of acute malnutrition and rates of crude mortality surpassed the famine thresholds in Middle Shabelle, the Afgoye corridor refugee settlement, and internally displaced communities in Mogadishu. The UN said last month that two other regions in Somalia were suffering from famine.
Somalia, which has virtually no functioning government, is suffering its worst drought in 60 years. Getting aid in has been difficult because Al Shabab, an Al Qaeda-linked militant group, controls much of the country’s most desperate areas.
Al Shabab denies there is a famine. It is trying to stop the flow of refugees toward food, an exodus that would diminish the population from which it draws conscripts and collects taxes.
Earlier yesterday, an official with the African Union said a donor conference to raise money for Somalia famine victims has been postponed for at least two weeks....
How many Somalis will die in the interim?
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"Thousands under age 5 die in famine in Somalia" August 05, 2011|By Mohamed Sheikh Nor, Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Kaltum Mohamed sits beside a small mound of earth, alone with her thoughts. It is her child’s grave - and there are three others like it.
Just three weeks ago, Mohamed was the mother of five young children. But the famine that has rocked Somalia has claimed the lives of four of them. Only a daughter remains. The others starved to death before Mohamed’s eyes as she and her husband trekked to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, in search of aid.
Thousands of parents are grieving in Somalia and in refugee camps in neighboring countries amid Somalia’s worst drought in 60 years.
The drought and famine in Somalia have killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5 in the last 90 days in southern Somalia alone, according to US estimates. The United Nations says 640,000 Somali children are acutely malnourished, suggesting the death toll of small children will rise.
That means less soldiers.
Mohamed and her husband tried to get their children from Somalia’s parched south to the capital, Mogadishu, in time to receive emergency aid from the few humanitarian organizations that are operating there.
They began their journey in the Lower Shabelle region, where the UN declared famine July 20.
Her family belongs to a tribe of pastoral nomads, but all of their livestock died in the drought. When her children fell ill, she took them to a hospital in the Lower Shabelle but could not afford the treatment they needed.
Most aid is not getting to the south where it is desperately needed. An Al Qaeda-allied group, Al Shabab, controls much of southern Somalia and insists that there is no famine. It has banned all aid groups but the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The family’s journey to the capital, one being made by thousands of other Somalis, came too late. Four of Mohamed’s children died en route because of severe malnutrition and related complications.
“Death is inevitable,’’ Mohamed said yesterday in a makeshift camp near Mogadishu’s airport, home to hundreds of other displaced people. “But the surprise was how suddenly I lost my four children in less than 24 hours because of famine.’’
I don't know how she bears it, I really do not.
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And WHO are the TERRORISTS again?
"Somali soldiers kill 7 seeking food" Associated Press / August 6, 2011
MOGADISHU, Somalia - A World Food Program handout of corn rations to Somalis trying to survive a famine turned deadly yesterday after government troops opened fire, killing at least seven people, witnesses said.
Residents of Mogadishu’s largest famine refugee camp accused government soldiers of starting the chaos by trying to steal some of the 290 tons of dry rations that aid workers were trying to distribute there. Then refugees joined in the scramble, prompting soldiers to open fire, the witnesses said.
“They fired on us as if we were their enemy,’’ said refugee Abidyo Geddi. “When people started to take the food then the gunfire started and everyone was being shot. We cannot stay here much longer. We don’t get much food, and the rare food they bring causes death and torture.’’
Well.... ???
The chaos underscores the dangers and challenges of getting help to a nation that has been essentially ungoverned for two decades and now has a severe famine sweeping through it. There are 9,000 African Union soldiers in the capital, but their main mission is to fight Al Qaeda-linked Islamists, not safeguard humanitarian aid.
They are safeguarding it. For themselves.
Aid workers are puzzling over how to distribute food without helping gunmen who prey on the refugees, compete for security contracts to guard the food, and steal it.
Like the government troops.
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And where are those terrorists coming from?
"Panel says 40 left US for Somali terrorism; GOP staff found number double prior reports" July 28, 2011|By Amy Forliti and Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Twice as many Americans as previously reported by law enforcement have traveled overseas to join a Qaeda-linked organization, a congressional investigation found.
The findings, discussed in a congressional hearing yesterday, are an indication the Somalia-based terrorist group has an even deeper reach into the United States.
More than 40 Americans have traveled to war-torn Somalia to join the terrorist group Al Shabab, an investigation by Republican staff on the House Homeland Security Committee found.
They must be the trainers.
Al Shabab, which initially focused on regional grievances, has expanded its focus to include targeting the West and recruiting Americans toward that cause.
Counterterrorism officials fear that the terror group with ties to Al Qaeda is a growing threat to the United States. In at least one instance, the government said, Al Shabab received terror training from Al Qaeda’s offshoot in Yemen.
Publicly, authorities have said at least 21 men left the Minneapolis area for Somalia since late 2007 and are believed to have joined the terror group. Four have died in the country, according to information from the FBI and family members who spoke to the Associated Press.
Others are feared dead, and the committee’s investigation found that at least 15 of the 40 Americans have been killed while fighting. In recent years, more than 35 people from across the United States have been charged with having connections to Al Shabab, including some who have been indicted for raising money to fund the terror group.
Details of the findings came out during the third in a series of congressional hearings examining the radical Islamic terror threat in the United States.
The chairman of the committee, Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, has been criticized for singling out one religion instead of looking at all issues of domestic extremism across the country. In response, King said only one group has killed 3,000 Americans: Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization that espouses a violent interpretation of Islam....
The Somalis are starving and here I am full up on AmeriKan media bulls***.
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Also see: Young Somalis seeking dialogue
Related:
"A rising hunger among children; BMC sees more who are dangerously thin and facing lasting problems" July 28, 2011|By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff
Doctors at a major Boston hospital report they are seeing more hungry and dangerously thin young children in the emergency room than at any time in more than a decade of surveying families.
Many families are unable to afford enough healthy food to feed their children, say the Boston Medical Center doctors. The resulting chronic hunger threatens to leave scores of infants and toddlers with lasting learning and developmental problems....
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Yeah, it is not just Somalia where kids are starving -- but at least banks made billions last quarter.
Also see: Boston’s black infants’ survival rate improves
They are hungrier but still living.
