Hunger spreads in Somalia as militants block towns - The Washington Post

 Mohamed Aden, a malnourished two-year-old boy, sits on his mother’s lap at Banadir maternal hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. Residents and officials say that severe hunger is spreading in southern Somalia where Islamic militants have encircled several towns in the control of African Union forces, preventing food deliveries, and deaths from malnutrition and hunger have been reported. (Farah Abdi Warsameh, File/Associated Press)

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Severe hunger is spreading in southern Somalia where militants have encircled several towns in the control of African Union forces, preventing food deliveries there, residents and officials say. Deaths from malnutrition and hunger have been reported.

“I’m packed up to go,” Maryan Howshow shouted by phone from the town of Bulo Burte. She said her son died of hunger last week, and her voice broke as she whispered his name: Mohamed. “It’s a famine style situation. People are dying.”

African Union forces fighting al-Shabab militants have moved into several towns across southern Somalia, pushing the militants out. But the consequence of that has been that the militants are blocking shipments of food from entering the town, creating a scene of hungry desperation.

“Al-Shabab’s tactic of encirclement has prevented commercial activity and humanitarian assistance to newly recovered areas,” Valerie Amos, the top U.N. official on humanitarian issues, told the U.N. Security Council this week. “Access to basic commodities is limited and food prices have increased.”

The average prices of basic food items has more than doubled in many regions, and more than 70,000 people have been displaced as a result of the fighting, “significantly disrupting the planting season,” she said.

Overnight attacks marked by explosions have become the norm. Tales of starvation are being reported from blockaded towns. Food is being airlifted into some areas but that expensive effort has limited effect. Elders in encircled towns say people are dying, though there is no official overall toll.

“At least five children died of hunger over the past two weeks,” said Mohamed Abdi Tol, the commissioner of Bakool region. He spoke from the town of Hudur, which militants have encircled.

Humanitarian officials have been warning for months that large areas of Somalia risk mass hunger later this year. In 2011, famine hit Somalia, killing an estimated 260,000 people.

Amos told the Security Council that only 19 percent of the $933 million aid leaders are asking for has been funded. Emergency needs in Syria and South Sudan have put a squeeze on aid funds for Somalia.

Earlier this week, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned that a below average harvest is expected in July and August due in part to two weak rainy seasons.

Most of the families fleeing from southern Somalia are arriving in the capital, Mogadishu, and piling into crowded refugee camps. One new arrival is Fatima Isaaq, the matriarch of a cow-herding family that lived for months under a militant blockade.

“We left behind everything to survive,” she said. “There was no food medicine or supplies. We had no choice but to flee.”

___

Associated Press writer Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Expecting to Feed 6.5 Million Ethiopians -United Nations

GENEVA — The World Food Program will help to feed nearly 6.5 million Ethiopians this year, the U.N. agency said on Tuesday, with the country hit by locusts, neighboring war and sparse rainfall.

“We are concerned because there is the beginning of a locust invasion in the eastern part of the country, and if it’s not properly handled it could be of concern for the pastoralist population living there,” WFP spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.

“And in the northern part of Ethiopia there has been less rain than average for the third or fourth consecutive year.”

Ethiopia is also dealing with growing refugee numbers due to the conflict in neighboring South Sudan, sapping WFP’s budget for feeding new arrivals in the country, which is at risk of a shortfall as soon as next month.

More than 120,000 South Sudanese have crossed over into Ethiopia in the past six months, mostly women and children who are arriving “famished, exhausted and malnourished”, WFP said in a statement.

The recent influx has brought total refugee numbers to 500,000 in Ethiopia. The U.N. also provides food for millions of needy or undernourished Ethiopians, including 670,000 school children and 375,000 in HIV/AIDS programs.

Ethiopia’s overall situation has vastly improved over recent years and the economy now ranks as one of the fastest growing in Africa. But deep problems remain.

Malnutrition has stunted the growth of two out of every five Ethiopian children and reduced the country’s workforce by 8 percent, WFP said, citing Ethiopian government data.

The International Monetary Fund expects Ethiopia’s economy to grow 7.5 percent in each of the next two fiscal years but says the government needs to encourage more private sector investment to prevent growth rates from falling thereafter.

- See more at: http://www.tadias.com/05/13/2014/united-nations-expecting-to-feed-6-5-million-ethiopians-this-year/#sthash.VjMPxGzo.dpuf

South Sudan 3.7million facing famine crisis » peoplesworld

by: BRIAN MCAFEE

tags: Famine, agriculture, refugees, civil war, oil, colonialism

Over 3.7 million people in this new African nation of 11 million are at severe risk of starvation. Conditions in South Sudan now parallel those of Ethiopia in the 1980s when hundreds of thousands died from famine. Toby Lanzer, the UN official coordinating humanitarian aid in South Sudan says "we're in a race against time."

Aside from the urgent immediate need, the civil war currently raging in South Sudan, which was the initial cause of the problems, the planting season is at risk and a lack of crops will further add to the already dire situation. With possibly over 4 million displaced people what is needed is food, water, shelter and protection.

Doctors Without Borders recently criticized the UN for not responding adequately to squalid conditions at the "Juba base, Tomping, where the displaced live in a low-lying area separated by a barbed-wire fence from empty dry space within the compound."

Some 21,000 people live at the camp alone.

President Obama has issued an executive order threatening sanctions against those responsible for the ongoing violence.

South Africa's former president Thabo Mbeki pointing to an inner party crisis in the country's leadership urges political parties close to the South Sudan ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to work toward resolving the conflict, claiming government's are unable to address the internal issues. A conflict between the country's president and vice-president sparked the current violence in December.

It is a very rough start for one of the world's youngest nations where a very large number of the displaced are children including thousands are orphans .Most of the refugees who have fled South Sudan are in Ethiopia.

Aid organizations that are helping South Sudan refugees:

• The UN High Commissioner for refugees
• Oxfam America
• Doctors without borders
• Médecins Sans Frontières

Ethiopia: 2.7 Million People Facing Hunger - Addis News

 ETHIOPIA  finds itself in critical need of food aid in order to feed 2.7 million people. This announcement comes not long after its leaders were upbeat, reporting a bumper harvest of231 million quintals of grain for the current fiscal year.

When donors and Ethiopian authorities met on January 24, 2014, to agree on the projection of the volume of humanitarian aid needed for 2014, the resultant crucial document – the joint Government and Humanitarian partners’ Document – showed that 2.7 million of the 91 million people in the nation, according to the latest estimate by the World Bank, are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The total food requirement is estimated at 388,635 metric tonnes (MT). This is broken down to 314,684 MT of cereals, 31,468 MT of pulses, 9,441 MT of oil and 33,042 MT of blended or supplementary food.

Ethiopia synonymous to hunger. A map showing areas that are critically affected by hunger

Why are Ethiopians starving Again? The answer rests on its successive autocratic rulers and tribalist leaders. Ethiopia today forced hundereds of thousands of Indigenous Peoples off their fertile lands to make way for foreign investors that came in to grow foodstuffs and bio-fuels for export. Having lost their land and their ability to produce their own food, the indigenous Peoples are being forced to become dependent on aid handouts.This comes against the government’s recent announcement that agricultural productivity in the nation is projected to grow in leaps and bounds.

Despite the normal and above normal 2013 ‘meher’ rains, which further improved the food security situation in the country, humanitarian challenges will continue in 2014 in north eastern Amhara, Afar and the southern Tigray regions. These are all areas that receive inadequate seasonal rainfall. There is also a focus on other areas that could be affected by various hazards, like – floods, conflicts, crop pests and diseases, stated the report.

Water shortages persist in the drought-prone areas in northeastern Afar, South Region, southeastern Tigray and the lowlands of the southern pastoralist areas.

The nation’s 12.27 million hectares of land was covered with cereals during the year 2012/13. This was a 1.52 pc increment compared to that of the previous year. The government planned to produce 22,907,055 tons of cereal, but exceeded it by 310,555 tons. However, the amount was not able to feed the nation. In the 2013/14 fiscal year, Ethiopia is planning to exceed last year’s cereal production by 2,300,000 tons.

The alarm for the Ethiopian government is clear despite the number of beneficiaries decreasing compared to that of the previous year.

Crop production, according to the document, will most likely be affected in the major producing areas of Amhara and Tigray for the third consecutive year. This will worsen the food security situation in these areas.

But the number of beneficiaries is particularly high in Oromia and the Somali regions, which account for 27 and 25 pc, respectively. Tigray and Amhara follow close behind with 19pc and 16pc, respectively.

Oromia has 766,336 people out of its population of 31 million (according to the CSA’s estimate of 2012) in need of humanitarian assistance. In the Somali region, on the other hand, 691,978 people are projected to be in need of food assistance out of a population of five million (according to the CSA’s estimate of 2012).

The alarm for the government is going to remain intact if weather conditions do not improve, says Rahel Asfaw, a senior Resource Mobilization Expert at the Disaster Prevention Preparedness & Food Security Sectoral Office.

“It all depends on whether or not there is timely rain,” she said.

In the remote Somali Region where the meher season was rain-deficit, the number might even grow, she says.

The total food requirement for 2014 amounts to 388 million dollars. This includes 314,684 tonnes of pulses, 9,441 tonnes of oil and 33,042 tonnes of blended food.

The problem for the government is that it only has 51.6 million dollars. This total represents just 12.8pc of what is required.

While the remainder is expected from the international community, previous contribution trends show that a portion of the required amount is left to be filled by the government itself.

Last year the donors contributed only 68 pc of what was required.

“The contribution from donors may not be any different from the previous year,” says Rahel.

For another food security expert, the international community’s contribution might not even amount to 68pc. He cites priorities elsewhere in the continent and the world.

“This will worsen the situation,” he fears.

U.N: Climate Change Effects Becoming More Severe - OzarksFirst.com

CNN News Wire

A farmer and his children plant a field with bean seeds and fertilizer in southern Ethiopia in 2008, a year after severe floods destroyed most of the food crop. Ethiopia is the country 10th most vulnerable to climate change effects, according to a 2013 report by Maplecroft. (Getty Images - CNN)

(CNN) -- Your forecast for the next century: Hotter, drier and hungrier, and the chance to turn down the thermostat is slipping away.



That's the latest conclusion from the United Nations, which urged governments to address the "increasingly clear" threats posed by a warming climate before some options are closed off for good. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that taking steps to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions blamed for rising temperatures could buy more time to adjust to a warmer world.



Cutting emissions now "increases the time available for adaptation to a particular level of climate change," the report states. But it adds, "Delaying mitigation actions may reduce options for climate-resilient pathways in the future."



"In many cases, we are not prepared for the climate-related risks that we already face," Vicente Barros, the co-chaiman of the IPCC working group behind the document, said in a statement accompanying the report. "Investments in better preparation can pay dividends both for the present and for the future."



The summary for policymakers was released Monday morning in Yokohama, Japan. It's the second part of the IPCC's benchmark assessment of climate change, a document released every six years with the input of nearly 1,000 scientists. Without checks on emissions, the impacts of climate change will be more severe, more likely, and possibly irreversible, it concludes.



Monday's report underscores "that we have committed to a certain amount of warming," said Kelly Levin, an energy and climate expert at the U.S.-based World Resources Institute.



"Over the next few decades, we are going to lock ourselves into a climate change commitment that is going to paint a very different world, depending on what we choose today," Levin said. "The choices we make today are going to affect the risks we face through the rest of the century."



As a result, "Adaptation is emerging as central area in climate change research," Levin said. But adaptation -- steps such as building sea walls, conserving water and designing cities for warmer climates -- has its limits, she said.



"The report suggests some options are going to be too resource-intensive or too expensive," she said.



An increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other emissions have driven average temperatures up by about 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) since 1950, the IPCC says. The first part of its report, released in September, concluded that even a best-case scenario would result in an increase in global average temperatures of 1.6 C; the worst-case scenario estimates a rise of 3.7 degrees Celsius (6.6 Fahrenheit).



The idea that carbon emissions are changing the Earth's climate is politically controversial, but generally accepted as fact by the overwhelming majority of scientists. And as emissions continue to rise, driving up CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, the impacts will be more severe, more likely and possibly irreversible, Monday's report states.



The summary of the full document -- which is more than 1,000 pages -- will be the premiere guide for lawmakers. It breaks down the expected impacts by continent and by categories such as marine life, agriculture and flood risks. And by diving into the specifics of the report, policymakers will be able to see what risks their specific locations face, as well as what adaptation and mitigation techniques could prove fruitful.



"The real highlight is how many impacts there are, how widespread they are and how pervasive they are around the world," said Heather McGray, who studies adaptation at WRI.



In most cases, climate change will exacerbate existing problems, such as the availability of fresh water in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors conclude that glaciers will continue to shrink "almost worldwide," affecting water supplies downstream.



Animals have begun shifting their habitats in response to a warming world, and key crops have been affected already, they wrote. Colder climates may see increases in crop yields from longer growing seasons and milder temperatures, but the negative effects are expected to outweigh the positive, the report states.



"In this report, the finding is the impacts of climate change are already widespread and consequential," McGray said.



The impacts won't be the same for everyone, and as usual, the world's poor are more likely to be hurt.



"Climate-related hazards affect poor people's lives directly through impacts on livelihoods, reductions in crop yields or destruction of homes and indirectly through, for example, increased food prices and food insecurity," the report states. Positive effects on the impoverished "are limited and often indirect."



For those people, the effects "will be catastrophic" unless emissions can be reduced, McGray said.

Ethiopian famine nurse who inspired Live Aid reveals tension with Michael Buerk | Mail Online

Nurse who inspired Live Aid when she appeared in television news reports about Ethiopian famine reveals she couldn't wait for Michael Buerk to leave

• Dame Claire Bertschinger featured in emotional BBC reports in 1984
• But she said the arrival of a film crew amid such pain made her uneasy
• 'I couldn't get rid of them fast enough. I thought "this is just ridiculous"'

By DAN BLOOM

PUBLISHED: 16:17 GMT, 23 March 2014 | UPDATED: 17:21 GMT, 23 March 2014

 
 
 
 

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The nurse whose appearance in BBC reports on the Ethiopian famine sparked Live Aid has revealed she could not get rid of the TV crew fast enough.

Dame Claire Bertschinger spoke of her anguish at having to choose who would live and die in the disaster and said she objected to 'ridiculous' questions from reporter Michael Buerk.

Although she accepted Mr Buerk and his crew were doing 'what he needed to do', the humanitarian worker said: 'I couldn't get rid of them fast enough'.

+5

'Ridiculous': Dame Claire Bertschinger said she wanted to get rid of the BBC crew which came to interview her during the Ethiopian famine of 1984. She said her thinking was 'I don't want these people around me'

+5

Heartbreaking: Michael Buerk's reports from Ethiopia inspired people to give millions of pounds in food aid

Speaking to Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, Dame Bertschinger said some of the hardest times in Ethiopia were on 'selection days' when she would have to choose who got fed.

'I can remember one day counting 10 rows of children and in each row there was over 100 children and I had 60 or 70 places,' she said.

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'I thought "how on earth am I going to do this?" We decided I would go up and down the lines and look at every child and put a little mark on them if I chose them.

'We didn't choose the ones who were the worst because we knew they would die within a few days. I chose the ones with a spark of life in their eyes.

'I was told [the TV crew] were coming and they came in the door and said "right, let's get some filming, stand over there, let's get some really sick children Claire, would you like to hold that one?"

+5

Horrific: Dame Bertschinger said she would have enough food to feed 50 or 60 people out of 1,000 or more

'Then [Michael Buerk] started asking me questions. I remember him asking me "so Claire, what's it feel like choosing those who can live? Does it do anything to you?"

'Ridiculous. I mean, what do you expect? It breaks my heart. And I just couldn't get rid of them fast enough because I just thought this is ridiculous, I don't want these people around me.'

However, she agreed 'absolutely' that Buerk was doing 'what he needed to do' to push the stark details of the famine into the public consciousness.

When the first aid plane arrived thanks to the money raised because of the BBC reports, she said: 'It was this massive plane and it landed in a hail of stones and shingles and dust and they opened the back doors and it was just full of food.

'I thought "wow - we're saved". It was just amazing.'

+5

+5

Blight: There had been famines before, but the scale and horror of that in Ethiopia shocked the world

The horiffic news reports from Ethiopia - still regarded as some of the most powerful ever recorded -
inspired a public campaign which culminated in millions of pounds being released through Band Aid's single Do They Know It's Christmas?

Buerk went on to become the anchor of the BBC's evening news, while Dame Bertschinger - who said she wanted to be a nurse since she was bandaging her teddies - was honoured by the Queen and is now a lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Her choices on the long-running interview show included a rendition of Rudyard Kipling's poem If and Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini by Bryan Hyland.

She replaced the Bible with Buddhist writings, and chose a Swiss Army knife as her one luxury.

Ethiopia's super food export dilemma | TeleManagement

videos/5252450http://grab-media.com/premium-videos/5252450

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VIDEO: ETHIOPIA’S SUPER FOOD EXPORT DILEMMA

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International demand for Ethiopia’s staple cereal is growing in the west as its super food creditials are endorsed by celebrities. But as Hayley Platt reports the government is reluctant to allow teff exports in case it leads to price rises at home.

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