{"id":9611,"date":"2011-07-24T15:32:54","date_gmt":"2011-07-24T11:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=9611"},"modified":"2011-07-24T15:32:54","modified_gmt":"2011-07-24T11:32:54","slug":"forget-the-bombs-africa-needs-food-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/forget-the-bombs-africa-needs-food-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget the Bombs, Africa Needs Food. Now."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cWhen you are hungry, cold is a killer, and the people here are starving and\u00a0helpless.\u201d Not many of us can relate to such a statement, but millions of \u2018starving\u00a0and helpless\u2019 people throughout the Horn of Africa know fully the pain of elderly\u00a0Somali mother, Batula Moalim.<\/p>\n

Moalim, quoted by the British Telegraph, was not posing as spokesperson to the\u00a0estimated 11 million people (per United Nations figures) who are currently in dire\u00a0need of food. About 440,000 of those affected by the world\u2019s \u201cworst humanitarian\u00a0disaster\u201d dwell in a state of complete despair in Dadaab, a complex of three camps\u00a0in Kenya. Imagine the fate of those not lucky enough to reach these camps, people\u00a0who remain chronically lacking in resources, and, in the case of Somalia, trapped in\u00a0a civil war.<\/p>\n

All that Batula Moalim was pleading for was \u201cplastic sheeting for shelter, as well\u00a0as for food and medicine.\u201d \u00a0It is disheartening, to say the least, when such disasters don\u2019t represent an\u00a0opportunity for political, military or other strategic gains, subsequently,\u00a0enthusiasm to \u2018intervene\u2019 peters out so quickly.<\/p>\n

UN officials from the World Food Programme (WFP) are not asking for much: $500\u00a0million to stave off the effects of what is believed to be the worst drought to hit\u00a0the Horn of Africa in 60 years. This is not an impossible feat, especially when one\u00a0considers the geographic extent of the drought and creeping famine. Ethiopia,\u00a0Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya are all affected, and terribly so. Sudan and Eretria are\u00a0also not far from the center of this encroaching disaster.<\/p>\n

60 percent of the amount requested by WFP has already been raised. More is needed,\u00a0however, especially as the reverberation of the drought is already surpassing the\u00a0immediate need for food and shelter. Five million are already at risk of cholera in\u00a0Ethiopia alone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hundreds have\u00a0reportedly died, and many more are likely to follow.<\/p>\n

Cholera requires an immediate remedy as the intestinal infection leads to sever\u00a0diarrhea, dehydration and death. Other figures are equally grim. 8.8 million people,\u00a0also in Ethiopia, are at risk of contracting malaria, according to Tarik Jasarevic,\u00a0WHO spokesman.\u00a0 Jasarevic has also told journalists that these ailments have already\u00a0been reported in Somalia, and other Ethiopian regions. This means the disaster is\u00a0not confined to refugee camps and is thus much harder to control.<\/p>\n

For refugees, there is nothing worse than having no safe haven in sight. Still, they\u00a0must escape when death becomes the only alternative to aimless journeys. While\u00a0hundreds of thousands are gathering in Kenya\u2019s camps, an average of 1,700 Somalirefugees venture to Ethiopia each day. The latter, a country with a population of about 85 million, is fully embroiled in the crisis. 4.5 million Ethiopians need\u00a0assistance, a rise of over 50 percent in less than three months, according to WHO.<\/p>\n

One can only try to envisage the speed at which this disaster is unraveling.\u00a0International organizations, including WFP, WHO and UNICEF have made numerous\u00a0appeals. Some major media outlets responded by giving the humanitarian crisis a\u00a0degree of coverage. While donations have bashfully trickled in, the goals are yet to\u00a0be reached. According to a report by the Telegraph, \u201cno African country has offered\u00a0a donation to help drought victims in the Horn of Africa outside of those affected.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report, published July 15, quoted Michael O\u2019Brien-Onyeka, Oxfam\u2019s Regional\u00a0Campaigns Policy Manager for East and Central Africa, who said it was\u00a0\u201cdisappointing\u201d that \u201cAfrican states insist on \u2018African solutions for African\u00a0problems\u2019 with regard to Libya but fail to respond to droughts and famines.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the subject of Libya, it may be helpful to consider some financial figures. \u00a0\u201cThe British Government has pledged \u00a338 million in food aid to Ethiopia,\u201d reported\u00a0the Telegraph. The following day, British Daily Mirror reported on the seemingly\u00a0different subject of Libya. Four more British jets were recently deployed to the war\u00a0zone near Libya, raising the total to 22 RAF jets, according to James Lyons in the\u00a0Mirror (July 16). The cost thus far is \u00a3260 million, only \u00a340 million short of the\u00a0total amount needed by the WFP to feed 11 million starving people.<\/p>\n

Here is another example of the dubious nature of British involvement in the war on\u00a0Libya (falsely slated as a war to prevent imminent massacres of civilians): \u201cTornado\u00a0GR4s cost around \u00a335,000 for every hour they are in the air and are having to fly\u00a0long distances from their base in Gioia del Colle, southern Italy, to Libya,\u201d\u00a0according to the Mirror.<\/p>\n

Major African countries and Britain are not the only parties involved in acts of\u00a0duplicity. The US military adventurism in the Horn of African, especially Somalia,\u00a0and its renewed use of costly unmanned drones can feed, cloth, shelter and treat\u00a0countless refugees. More, Arab and Muslim countries tend to be the least responsive\u00a0parties in such situations. While it is true that the chief of the Organization of\u00a0Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu made several appeals for help, such\u00a0singular calls generate feel-good moments but no major mobilization for action.<\/p>\n

The disaster in the Horn of Africa is partly man-made. Countries with \u2018failed\u00a0states\u2019 status (in other words, victims of outside interventions) cannot possibly\u00a0fend off crises of this magnitude. For the last 20 years, Somalia has had no central\u00a0government controlling the country\u2019s territories. Outside intervention has made it\u00a0impossible for any party to unite the disjointed country. What is a Somali refugee\u00a0to do?<\/p>\n

To help the millions disaffected by the multilayered disaster in the Horn of Africa,\u00a0we need more than appeals for blankets and food stuff.\u00a0 We also need a degree of\u00a0human decency and common sense. We need to re-channel some of the funds wasted on\u00a0disastrous wars into actually saving lives. If warning parties would ground their\u00a0Tornado GR4s and other warplanes for a few days, the single action alone could save\u00a0the entire region.<\/p>\n

For now, though, let us all do what we can to help the Horn of Africa survive this\u00a0terrible ordeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAMZY BAROUD: Maybe it’s time to save a few bombing runs on Libya and donate the proceeds to the humanitarian catastrophe that’s unfolding in the Horn of Africa? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":9612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,83,325,235,60,482],"tags":[2009,2609,7933,2399,7934,18278,1277,5246,18332,1997,191,918,7931,700,221,2289,18337,387,3136,18302,2250],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}