Only a “massive” and immediate increase in funding and humanitarian aid can save Somalia from starvation, a UN spokesman has warned, as aid workers say children are starving “in front of our eyes” amid hunger. rapidly rising levels of malnutrition.
In a message to G7 leaders meeting in Germany on Sunday, Michael Dunford, regional director of the World Food Program (WFP) for East Africa, said governments needed to make donations as a matter of urgency and generosity if there was any hope of averting the catastrophe in the Horn of Africa.
“We need money and we need it now,” Dunford said. “We will be able to avoid it [a famine in Somalia]? Unless there is … a massive expansion from now on, it will not be possible, frankly. The only way, at this point, is if there is a massive investment in humanitarian aid, and all stakeholders, all partners, come together to try to prevent it. ”
The Horn of Africa has suffered four consecutive failed rainy seasons and is experiencing its worst drought in four decades, a climate shock exacerbated by the ongoing conflict and rising prices caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Across East Africa, 89 million people are now considered “acute food insecurity” by WFP, a figure that has grown by almost 90% last year.
“It simply came to our notice then [that rate of growth] slowing down. In any case, it looks like it’s accelerating, “Dunford said.
Last year, the UK and other G7 leaders pledged $ 7 billion (£ 5.7 billion) to help countries prevent hunger, but calls in East Africa have failed to raise enough funds. to prevent hunger.
These same leaders are now urged to commit to an immediate funding package as Somalia, the worst-hit country, falls into disaster. At least 213,000 people in the worst-hit areas are expected to face hunger in September, according to the latest report from the Integrated Food Security Classification (CPI).
On a recent visit to the country, Claire Sanford, Deputy Director of Humanitarian Affairs at Save the Children, said she had met mothers who had already buried several children over the past year and surviving children who were now severely malnourished. A three-month-old baby with acute malnutrition whom Sanford met “never spent the night, and we were able to talk about a series of stories where this was the case.”
“I can honestly say that in my 23 years of responding to the humanitarian crisis, this is by far the worst I’ve seen, especially in terms of the level of impact on children,” he said. “The hunger that my colleagues and I witnessed in Somalia has grown even faster than we feared.”
A Somali woman fleeing drought-stricken areas gives water to her baby in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, Saturday, June 4, 2022. Photo: Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP
In 2011, Somalia experienced a famine that killed more than 250,000 people, mostly children, but Sanford said many of the people he met said conditions were even worse now.
“We have really failed as an international community that we have allowed the situation to reach its current state. In 2011, we promised as a community that we would never, ever again allow this to happen. And yet we have failed in that promise. “, added.
Dunford said inadequate funding had hampered efforts to learn from the 2011 famine. It’s not that we haven’t learned the lessons of 2011; from that crisis he learned very, very well. We have not been able to implement it to the extent necessary due to lack of funding. “
In April, the UN had only received 3% of the funds for its $ 6 billion call for Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.
Danny Sriskandarajah, executive director of Oxfam GB, said the current crisis was due in part to the British government’s “failure of compassion” and the decision to cut the foreign aid budget by £ 4.6 billion. ‘last year.
According to the latest CPI assessment for Somalia, an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition at the end of the year, including 386,400 who are likely to suffer from severe malnutrition. These figures are only expected to rise.