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CIAO Focus, August 2011: Humanitarian Crisis in Somalia
“A little less than two weeks ago, the United Nations declared a famine in two regions in Somalia, and warned that urgent action needed to be taken to prevent famine from spreading further. On August 03, FAO’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit announced that famine thresholds have been surpassed in three additional areas of southern Somalia; Middle Shabelle, the Afgoye corridor IDP settlement and the Mogadishu IDP community. Nationwide, 3.7 million people are in crisis, with 3.2 million people in need of immediate, lifesaving assistance of which 2.8 million in the south central Somalia. That is twice the entire population of Manhattan. Children are the most affected by the crisis and an estimated 1.25 million children across southern Somalia are in urgent need of life-saving assistance. Tens of thousands of children have already died and many more will die in the coming days unless aid is provided to them. Under-5 mortality rates are higher than 4/10,000/day in all areas of the south, peaking at 13/10,000/day in the Riverine and agro-pastoral areas of Lower Shabelle and among Afgoye and Mogadishu IDPs. Let me illustrate what an under-5 mortality rate of 13/10,000/day actually means: it means by the time I go to bed tonight, 13 children will have died in a community of 10,000 people.”
--Opening Remarks to the UN Security Council by the Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, 10 August 2011
From the CIAO Database:
Somalia: The Transitional Government on Life Support
Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
Outside Sources: *
Al-Shabaab and Somalia's Spreading Famine (Council on Foreign Relations) http://www.cfr.org/somalia/al-shabaab-somalias-spreading-famine/p25630
Somalia Famine & Drought: Situation Report #8 (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)
http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/OCHA Somalia Situation Report No. 8 10 August 2011.pdf
Briefing to the UN Security Council on the situation in Somalia (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)
http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Full_Report_2056.pdf
Map & Graphics for East Africa
http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/map_739.pdf
East Africa Hunger Crisis (BBC News)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14248278
Millions face famine in Somalia (Video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hr7wSDNgxI
* Outside links are not maintained. For broken outside links, CIAO recommends the Way Back Machine.