CRISISBOOM

The United Nations has officially declared Somalia’s food crisis a famine in several parts of the country.

The UN says consecutive droughts over the last few years in Somalia have created a famine in two regions of the south. It is now appealing for immediate action to keep the crisis from spreading to other parts of the region.

International aid agency Oxfam said, the UN announcing famine in parts of Somalia, the first in the region in the 21st century, must be an urgent wake up call to the rest of the world for greater action in East Africa.

Across Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, 12 million women, men and children are in dire need of food, clean water and basic sanitation, following two years of failed or poor rains, and in some parts of the region the driest conditions in 60 years.

According to Oxfam, the crisis has been building for several months but the response from international donors and regional governments has been mostly slow, inadequate and complacent, and the aid response is still US$800 million short of what is needed.

Oxfam Australia Executive Director Andrew Hewett said: “There has been a catastrophic breakdown of the world’s collective responsibility to act. An exodus of 3,500 people a day are fleeing Somalia and arriving in parts of Ethiopia and Kenya that are suffering one of the driest years in six decades.

“Food, water and emergency aid are desperately needed. By the time the UN calls it a famine it is already a signal of large scale loss of life. We must now ensure that aid comes quickly to prevent people dying in massive numbers.