A children’s crisis:1.4 million at risk of starvation | Save the Children Australia

• A children’s crisis:1.4 million at risk of starvation

  FRI, 10 MAR 2017 4:42PM

   
   
   
   

  
  
  

  A picture may tell a thousand words, but this one might deceive you.

  Donate now: Child Hunger Crisis

  Believe it or not, Abdi* (pictured above) is one of the lucky ones. While little 15-month-old Abdi is fighting for his life in Garowe General Hospital in northern Somalia, he is, at least, receiving treatment.

  For thousands of other children in more remotes areas of Somalia, there’s no one to help. No hospital. No health professionals. No medicine. And – critically – no food.

  The first victims of famine

  Famine has been declared in South Sudan. Together with Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria, more than 1.4 million children are at imminent risk of starvation with these countries on the brink of famine. Kenya and Ethiopia are also facing critical food shortages. Experts say we’re at a tipping point in this crisis.

  Somalia is facing a new famine – and Save the Children is warning the situation could be worse than their 2011 famine that claimed 260,000 lives.

  Experts predict the number of children suffering from malnutrition in Somalia could rise to 850,000 cases this year unless urgent aid is provided to the severely drought-stricken country. The United Nations has warned that more than 50,000 children are now facing death in Somalia.

  Nigeria in crisis

  In north-eastern Nigeria, West Africa, two-year-old Shuri* and his seven-year-old sister Rukaiya* are also fighting for their lives.

  

  Dr Bot Isaac examines two-year-old Shuri at Save the Children’s health centre in Maiduguri, Nigeria. Shuri’s mother, Zuwaira, watches over him. Their family was displaced by the conflict in 2014 and now survives on just 100 Naira (42 Australian cents) per day. Photograph: Tommy Trenchard/Save the Children

  "With Rukaiya, it started with malaria. When there is no food, the slightest sickness becomes so much more serious,” says their mother, 35-year-old Zuwaira. “One of the community volunteers saw my children and told us to go to the nutrition clinic. Then they brought us here [to Save the Children’s health centre].

  “Rukaiya was almost dead and ready to be buried. She couldn’t stand or recognise anyone. She was just crying. She couldn’t even talk.”

  

  Rukaiya is getting stronger, thanks to help from Save the Children’s health clinic. "I don’t know where the sickness would have ended. But when I got here [to the health clinic] I felt less worried. I saw other children getting better," says her mother. Photograph: Tommy Trenchard/Save the Children

  Thankfully, after treatment from Save the Children’s doctors and health workers, Rukaiya is recovering. “She can now talk. Now she is starting to look better,” says her mother.

  And her little brother is also getting stronger. “Shuri could not sit up and his temperature was high all the time. Now [that he’s getting treatment] he is slowly getting better."

  

  Just after he was born, Shuri’s family fled their home after their village was attacked. They tried to return last year after the elections, only for it to be attacked again and burnt down. Now, their only income is what Shuri’s father can make carrying water for people from the borehole. Photograph: Tommy Trenchard/Save the Children

  

  Dr Bot helps many children like Shuri at Save the Children’s health centre in Morlai General Hospital in Maiduguri, Nigeria. Photograph: Tommy Trenchard/Save the Children

  Children are paying the heaviest price for seven years of insurgency and violence in Nigeria. According to the United Nations, 450,000 children in Nigeria are at risk of severe malnutrition in 2017, 90,000 of whom could die.

  Widespread famine looms

  And it isn’t just Somalia and Nigeria’s children who are fighting starvation. Famine has now been declared in parts of conflict-crippled South Sudan and the United Nations has warned that, along with Somalia and Nigeria, Yemen is also on the brink of catastrophe. Meanwhile, Kenya and Ethiopia are facing crippling droughts.

  In 2010–11, 258,000 people lost their lives in Somalia because of drought. We cannot let this happen again.

  

  I want to help. What can I do?

  You can support our Child Hunger Crisis Appeal. Everything we raise will help us get urgent support to children and families in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia.

  We are already reaching the hardest-hit communities. Right now, our teams are on the ground delivering life-saving aid:

  • We are providing food aid and cash transfers so children can eat.
  • Our Emergency Health Units are treating children suffering from severe malnutrition.
  • We are getting clean drinking water to hard-to-reach communities.
  • We are providing technical assistance to governments to support their responses.

  Please donate today to help children who need you most.

  *Names changed to protect their identity.

  Header Image Photo credit: Tom Pilston/Save the Children

  How you can help:

  Children in East Africa and beyond are dying from severe hunger. Please give today.

  
  
  

  How you can help:

  Children in East Africa are dying from severe hunger. Please give today.

  Donate now: Child Hunger Crisis

Ethiopia's Cruel Con Game -forbes

GUEST POST WRITTEN BY

David Steinman

Mr. Steinman advises foreign democracy movements. He authored the novel “Money, Blood and Conscience” about Ethiopia’s secret genocide.

In what could be an important test of the Trump Administration’s attitude toward foreign aid, the new United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, and UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien have called on the international community to give the Ethiopian government another $948 million to assist a reported 5.6 million people facing starvation.

Speaking in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, during the recent 28th Summit of the African Union, Guterres described Ethiopia as a “pillar of stability” in the tumultuous Horn of Africa, praised its government for an effective response to last year's climate change-induced drought that left nearly 20 million people needing food assistance, and asked the world to show “total solidarity” with the regime.

Women and children wait for care at an outpatient treatment center in Lerra village, Wolayta, Ethiopia, on June 10, 2008. (Jose Cendon/Bloomberg News)

Ethiopia is aflame with rebellions against its unpopular dictatorship, which tried to cover up the extent of last year’s famine. But even if the secretary general’s encouraging narrative were true, it still begs the question: Why, despite ever-increasing amounts of foreign support, can’t this nation of 100 million clever, enterprising people feed itself? Other resource-poor countries facing difficult environmental challenges manage to do so.

Two numbers tell the story in a nutshell:

1. The amount of American financial aid received by Ethiopia’s government since it took power: $30 billion.

2. The amount stolen by Ethiopia’s leaders since it took power: $30 billion.

The latter figure is based on the UN’s own 2015 report on Illicit Financial Outflows by a panel chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki and another from Global Financial Integrity, an American think tank. These document $2-3 billion—an amount roughly equaling Ethiopia’s annual foreign aid and investment—being drained from the country every year, mostly through over- and under-invoicing of imports and exports.

Ethiopia’s far-left economy is centrally controlled by a small ruling clique that has grown fantastically wealthy. Only they could be responsible for this enormous crime. In other words, the same Ethiopian leadership that’s begging the world for yet another billion for its hungry people is stealing several times that amount every year.

America and the rest of the international community have turned a blind eye to this theft of taxpayer money and the millions of lives destroyed in its wake, because they rely on Ethiopia’s government to provide local counterterror cooperation, especially with the fight against Al-Shabab in neighboring Somalia. But even there we’re being taken. Our chief aim in Somalia is to eliminate Al-Shabab. Our Ethiopian ally’s aim is twofold: Keep Somalia weak and divided so it can’t unite with disenfranchised fellow Somalis in Ethiopia’s adjoining, gas-rich Ogaden region; and skim as much foreign assistance as possible. No wonder we’re losing.

The Trump Administration has not evinced particular interest in democracy promotion, but much of Ethiopia’s and the region’s problems stem from Ethiopia’s lack of the accountability that only democracy confers. A more accountable Ethiopian government would be forced to implement policies designed to do more than protect its control of the corruption. It would have to free Ethiopia’s people to develop their own solutions to their challenges and end their foreign dependency. It would be compelled to make the fight on terror more effective by decreasing fraud, basing military promotions on merit instead of cronyism and ending the diversion of state resources to domestic repression. An accountable Ethiopian government would have to allow more relief to reach those who truly need it and reduce the waste of U.S. taxpayers’ generous funding. Representative, accountable government would diminish the Ogaden’s secessionist tendencies that drive Ethiopia’s counterproductive Somalia strategy.

But Ethiopia’s government believes it has America over a barrel and doesn’t have to be accountable to us or to its own people. Like Mr. Guterres, past U.S. presidents have been afraid to confront the regime, which even forced President Barack Obama into a humiliating public defense of its last stolen election. The result has been a vicious cycle of enablement, corruption, famine and terror.

Whether the Trump Administration will be willing to play the same game remains to be seen. The answer will serve as a signal to other foreign leaders who believe America is too craven to defend its money and moral values.

Prime Minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Desalegn attends the 28th African Union summit in Addis Ababa on January 30, 2017. (ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/Getty Images)

When famine hits, Latest World News - The New Paper

Due to war and drought, South Sudan officially experiences famine, with three other areas on the verge

From ancient Rome to modern times, mankind has suffered devastating periods of hunger caused by drought, war or misguided politics.

Last week, South Sudan was declared the site of the world's first famine in six years, affecting about 100,000 people.

Here is an exploration of a term that evokes the very worst of human suffering.

"Famine is not a word that we use lightly," said Mr Erminio Sacco, a food security expert with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

Since 2007, the term has been employed according to a scientific system agreed upon by global agencies, known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) scale.

According to the IPC scale, famine exists when at least 20 per cent of the population in a specific area has extremely limited access to basic food; acute malnutrition exceeds 30 per cent; and the death rate exceeds two per 10,000 people per day for the entire population.

"This scientific methodology helps to avoid famine becoming a term misused for political reasons," Mr Sacco said.

Over the last century, famines hit China, the former Soviet Union, Iran and Cambodia, often the result of human actions.

Europe suffered several famines in the Middle Ages, but its most recent were during World Wars I and II, where parts of Germany, Poland and the Netherlands were left starving under military blockades.

In Africa, there have been several famines in recent decades, from Biafra in Nigeria in the 1970s to the 1983-1985 Ethiopian famine, which ushered in a new form of celebrity fundraising and unprecedented media attention on the suffering.

The last famine in the world was in Somalia in 2011, and it killed an estimated 260,000 people.

While South Sudan is officially experiencing famine, the UN has warned that Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen are all on the verge of the classification, which could affect more than 20 million people.

"The common denominator is protracted armed conflicts and its negative impact on access to food, farming and livestock production... livelihoods, trade and, not least, humanitarian delivery," Mr Sacco said.

Of the four famine alerts, only one - Somalia - is caused by drought, while the other three stem from conflicts.

In South Sudan, people have gone through cycles of displacement over the past three years. This has driven many of them to hide in swamps, having lost their homes, crops and livestock.

With nothing else available, they spend days foraging for wild food such as water lily roots, fruit or fish, Mr Sacco said.

They also spend days walking in search of food aid through areas controlled by armed groups.

"They are extremely weak, hungry, and drink unsafe water from ponds and rivers," he said.

Cholera is a constant threat.

When a lack of food has led to an 18 per cent loss of weight, the body starts undergoing physiological disturbances, according to a 1997 study of hunger strikes published in the British Medical Journal.

"The body metabolism gets increasingly dysfunctional, impacting the brain and other vital organs," Mr Sacco said

"At that point, therapeutic feeding treatment is necessary to save lives, as the body has lost the ability to process normal foods."

When people have insufficient food over several weeks, it leads to organ failure and eventually death.

Even without reaching famine, parts of the Sahel, Somalia and Ethiopia go through regular cycles of hunger that have long-term social consequences.

"The biological damage erodes the physical well-being of entire generations of children and their development potential, possibly resulting in a weak workforce and retarded students," Mr Sacco said.

Hunger leads to stunted growth and impacts cognitive development, and can lead to poor health throughout a person's life. - AFP

A new famine? Facing death’s door in East Africa and beyond | Save the Children Australia

Famine has been declared in South Sudan. Together with Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria, more than 1.4 million children are at imminent risk of starvation with these countries on the brink of famine. Kenya and Ethiopia are also facing critical food shortages. What is going on?

Donate now: Child Hunger Crisis

In Somalia, 15-month-old Abdi* (pictured) is facing death's door.

Caught in a devastating drought, over which he has no control, he is being left to starve – in a world that has more than enough food. Right now, children in East Africa are facing starvation – millions of lives are in danger.

Facing famine in East Africa…and beyond

While Abdi is receiving treatment in Somalia, there are 1.4 million other children in the region suffering the same pain, and facing starvation. The United Nations warns more than 50,000 children are facing death right now.

Famine has been declared in South Sudan, the first to be announced anywhere in the world in six years. Somalia is also on the verge of famine, while Kenya and Ethiopia are both critically affected.

Pete Walsh is Save the Children's Country Director in South Sudan. "While the threat of a famine in South Sudan has been looming for months, the worst-case scenario has now become a devastating reality. In the coming months, famine could spread to other parts of the country, where millions of vulnerable children and families now risk starving to death."

What's causing this crisis?

While the causes of this hunger crisis are varied, the devastating consequences are the same – children are right now struggling to survive and are at risk of starvation.

Widespread drought and brutal conflict has caused successive crop failures, leaving families across the region with little food or water. The number of children requiring treatment for hunger is already beyond what the modern humanitarian system has ever had to cope with at one time.

The catastrophe unfolding around baby Abdi is beyond his control. But if we act without delay, we can save his life. And countless others.

I want to help. What can I do?

You can support our Child Hunger Crisis Appeal. Everything we raise will help us get urgent support to children and families in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

We are already reaching the hardest-hit communities. Right now, our teams are on the ground delivering life-saving aid:

• We are providing food aid and cash transfers so children can eat.
• Our Emergency Health Units are treating children suffering from severe malnutrition.
• We are getting clean drinking water to hard-to-reach communities.
• We are providing technical assistance to governments to support their responses.

In 2010–11, 258,000 people lost their lives in Somalia because of drought. This cannot happen again. Act now to help prevent famine in Somalia.

Please donate today to help children in East Africa who need you most.

*Not his real name.

How you can help:

Children in East Africa are dying from severe hunger. Please give today.

Donate now: Child Hunger Crisis

World’s major famines of the last 100 years | The Indian Express

The Marxist policies of Mengistu Haile Mariam, which he began abandoning in 1990 with some economic reforms, left a country ravaged by economic decline, famine and regional conflicts that consumed half the state budget.

By: Reuters | London | Published:February 21, 2017 10:39 pm

(AP Photo/File/Representational)

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said on Tuesday nearly 1.4 million children were at “imminent risk” of death in famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Famine was formally declared on Monday in parts of South Sudan, which has been mired in civil war since 2013. People are already starving to death in all four countries, and the World Food Programme says more than 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months. The United Nations defines famine as when at least 20 percent of households in an area face extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 percent, and two or more people per 10,000 are dying per day.

Here are details about some of the major famines around the world in the last 100 years:

SOMALIA

In 2011, Somalia suffered a famine that killed 260,000 people in south and central regions. The famine was declared in July, but most people had already died by May. Years of drought, that have also affected Kenya and Ethiopia, have hit harvests and conflict has made it extremely difficult for agencies to operate and access communities in the south of the country. U.N. declared Somali famine over in February 2012 following an exceptional harvest after good rains and food deliveries by aid agencies.

NORTH KOREA

From 1995-1999 between 2.8 million and 3.5 million people died because of a combination of flooding and government policy in the reclusive state.

ETHIOPIA

The Marxist policies of Mengistu Haile Mariam, which he began abandoning in 1990 with some economic reforms, left a country ravaged by economic decline, famine and regional conflicts that consumed half the state budget. In 1984-85, in the famine, up to one million Ethiopians starved to death. For months in 1984, Mengistu denied the devastating famine in Ethiopia’s north. Aid workers later recalled he flew in planes loaded with whisky to celebrate the anniversary of his revolution, as hunger deepened. Bob Geldof, after watching pictures of the famine, organised Live Aid in 1985 to try to alleviate the hunger. Watched by 1.5 billion people, it raised $100 million for Africa’s starving.

CAMBODIA

Up to 2 million died of famine following a decade of conflict, first during the 1970-1975 civil war, then during the brutal Khmer Rouge era until 1978 and finally in the aftermath of the Vietnamese invasion that ended Khmer Rouge rule in 1979.

CHINA

Between 10 and 30 million people died as a result of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. His plan involved modernizing agriculture and increasing grain production however officials often exaggerated the size of harvests, and in many places the entire grain harvest was seized. China’s leaders appeared to have been unaware of the severity of the famine as from 1958 until 1961, China doubled its grain exports and cut imports of food.

SOVIET UNION

Up to 8 million people died as a result of Josef Stalin’s massive industrialisation programme in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, during which the government seized grain for export. It needed the hard currency to buy industrial equipment. When people in the Ukraine reported a famine, Stalin punished them by refusing to send them food aid.

East Africa faces fresh famine crisis | Public Finance

ast Africa faces fresh famine crisis | Public Finance: "East Africa faces fresh famine crisis By: Emma Rumney 15 Feb 17 The risk of famine and severe food insecurity in eastern Africa is being compounded by the emergence of new pests and rising food prices. Web_DroughtZambia_shutterstock_74778760.jpg   A regional emergency meeting kicked off today in Zimbabwe to decide how to deal with pests such as the fall armyworm, which is decimating much-needed staple crops like maize across southern Africa. The arrival of such pests and diseases looks set to exacerbate the impact of a severe drought in the region and spread elsewhere on the continent, while United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation warned yesterday of the impact of spiralling food prices.  This is “severely constraining food access” for swathes of households and has “alarming consequences for food insecurity”, said Mario Zappacosta, FAO senior economist and coordinator of an FAO system that monitors food supply and demand. The news comes just days after NGOs urged immediate action to be taken to prevent famine in countries like Somalia – a word not used lightly by aid agencies – with Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan and South Sudan also facing food crises. “We are undoubtedly in a crisis, but the situation will even get worse, especially if the April rains perform poorly,” said Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, the International Federation of the Red Cross’ regional director for Africa. “We need to act decisively, we need to act massively and we need to act now if we are to prevent a repeat of the awful scenes of 2011,” she said, referring to a drought in the region that saw over 260,000 people die in a famine in Somalia alone. The IFRC said that 11 million people are currently in need of urgent food assistance in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya alone. In 2011, more than 13 million were in need in those three countries and South Sudan. In the conflict-hit country today, another 2.8 million people are in need of urgent food assistance. At the same time, 18 million people are in need in war-torn Yemen and approximately 5.1 million are acutely food insecure in north eastern Nigeria. Conflict, as in the three countries above, and the super strong El Niño weather event of the past two years, which caused severe drought across numerous African nations, are the main drivers of the crisis. Somalia, where two seasons of drought led to failed harvests, left three-quarters of the country’s livestock dead and more than half of its population in acute need of food, is perhaps the worst hit. The FAO said yesterday that grain prices in some market towns in Somalia doubled in January from a year earlier, with weather forecasts predicting another poor performance in the next rainy season. Maize prices have also doubled in Arusha, Tanzania since early 2016, and are 25% higher than 12 months earlier in the country’s largest city Dar es Salaam. In South Sudan, food prices are between two and four times higher than a year earlier, and maize is up by 75% in Uganda and 30% in Kenya. The price of livestock has also risen by between 30% and 60% in the past twelve months in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. “This is the worst situation we have seen in the region since 2011,” said IFRC’s Nafo-Traoré. “We have an opportunity to prevent suffering of a similar scale, but only if we act now.”"



'via Blog this'

Millions of people face food shortages in Ethiopia

REPORT

from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Published on 29 Jan 2017 —View Original

FAO calls for immediate response to prevent catastrophe due to severe drought

29 January 2017, Addis Ababa - With as little as one-quarter of expected rainfall received, widespread drought conditions in the Horn of Africa have intensified since the failure of the October-December rains, FAO said today.

FAO estimates that over 17 million people are currently in crisis and emergency food insecurity levels in member-countries of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), namely Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda, which are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

Areas of greatest concern cover much of Somalia, north-east and coastal Kenya, south-east of Ethiopia as well as the Afar region still to recover from El Nino induced drought of 2015/16; and South Sudan and Darfur region of Sudan due to the protracted insecurity.

Currently, close to 12 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are in need of food assistance, as families face limited access to food and income, together with rising debt, low cereal and seed stocks, and low milk and meat production. A pre-famine alert has been issued for Somalia and an immediate and at scale humanitarian response is highly required.

Acute food shortage and malnutrition also remains to be a major concern in many parts of South Sudan, Sudan (west Darfur) and Uganda's Karamoja region.

FAO warns that if response is not immediate and sufficient, the risks are massive and the costs high.

"The magnitude of the situation calls for scaled up action and coordination at national and regional levels. This is, above all, a livelihoods and humanitarian emergency - and the time to act is now", said FAO Deputy Director-General, Climate and Natural Resources, Maria Helena Semedo. "We cannot wait for a disaster like the famine in 2011".

Semedo was speaking on behalf of the FAO Director-General at a High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Situation in the Horn of Africa chaired by the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, on the sidelines of the 28th AU Summit (Addis-Ababa).

"The drought situation in the Region is extremely worrying, primarily in almost all of Somalia but also across Southern and South-eastern Ethiopia, and northern Kenya. As a consequence, with the next rains at least eight weeks away and the next main harvest not until July, millions are at risk of food insecurity across the region", Semedo said.

For his part Guterres said: "We must express total solidarity with the people of Ethiopia on the looming drought, as a matter of justice." The UN Secretary-General called for a stronger commitment to work together.

Drought impacts livelihoods

Repeated episodes of drought have led to consecutive failed harvests, disease outbreaks, deteriorating water and pasture conditions and animal deaths.

"Insecurity and economic shocks affect the most vulnerable people", warned Bukar Tijani, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa. "The situation is rapidly deteriorating and the number of people in need of livelihood and humanitarian emergency assistance is likely to increase as the dry and lean season continue with significant negative impact on livelihoods and household assets as well as on the food security and nutrition of affected rural communities", he added.

In 2016, refugees and asylum seekers increased by over 0.5 million to 3 million compared to 2015.

Strengthening FAO's efforts to drought response

"FAO's partnership to build resilience to shocks and crises in the Horn of Africa is critical and will increase," assured Tijani.

Recently, FAO and IGAD agreed on some key steps to enhance collaboration in mitigating the severe drought currently affecting the countries in the Horn of Africa region and strengthening food security and resilience analysis.

The two organizations emphasized the importance of enhancing the role of the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG), The Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) and the Resilience Analysis Unit to enhance the effectiveness of the Early warning-Early action and resilience investments.

FAO calls for joint priorities to increase and include enhanced coordination, increased and systematic engagement of member States and effective response to member States' identified needs, as well as strengthened resource mobilization efforts.