A deadly famine is currently ravaging Somalia and the rest of the African Horn and it shows no sign of abating. Four million people in Somalia, some 50 per cent of the population, face starvation. Once the famine has reached its cruel climax, it is estimated that it will have claimed more than 10 million victims. The devastation will endure into 2012.
The Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell’s move to triple DFID aid to the country back in February should be welcomed given the graveness of the situation. However, the lukewarm response to appeals for donations from the British public has certainly been cause for concern. In the first weeks of the appeal, only £45 million was raised by the Disasters Emergency Committee, in stark contrast to almost £400 million during the Tsunami crisis. Although this figure has been steadily rising, it is unclear whether the appeal will ever gain the momentum it needs.
Many reasons have been offered as an explanation. Some of these are domestic. Commentators lament the inability of famine images to evoke the same intensity of response as more dramatic natural disasters. Others blame the blanket coverage of homegrown stories this summer, such as the riots and the News of the World scandal. Attention has been drawn back to the region with the recent kidnap of Judith Tebbutt and murder of her husband just over the border in Kenya.
However, the horrific civil war rocking Somalia, which the Coalition government has made little attempt to tackle, ultimately explains this man-made famine. War between the Somali transitional government and Islamic militants, coupled with internecine rivalry between Somali clans, is the reason that harvest failure has escalated to mass starvation so quickly. The anti-Western Islamic militant group, al-Shabaab, which control most of southern Somalia, have also directly caused an explosion of famine in the South Central region, the worst affected area, by banning nearly all NGOs.
Leaked cables reveal that the UN were calling for action to avert a disaster like this in Somalia as early as 2008. Warnings about Somalia intensified in October 2010 when the rains failed. However, the coalition failed to prioritise achieving political stability in Somalia. Despite the government’s insistence that it recognises that solving humanitarian crises requires commitment to solving conflict, it is telling that the development minister is the only British cabinet minister to have visited Somaliland since coming into office. That the recent UN summit, which established a road map for the election of a new Somali president in 2012, was the first notable political conference that the country has witnessed in four years is an international sham. The coalition government must accept some of the responsibility for this failure.
The coalition claims to understand the importance of finding integrated solutions for places like Somalia, which address not only poverty but also political unrest. However, its continued failure to get to grips with conflict in Somalia betrays its unreadiness to put this into practice and the terrible consequences that can ensue.
You can donate to the DEC appeal in several ways, including by text and online. For details, visit www.dec.org.uk
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