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The British Government has announced that:  

Drought-hit Somalia is set to receive a further £5 million in humanitarian assistance from the UK, International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, announced today. The new funding brings the UK’s total response to the drought in Somalia to £12 million since December 2005. Of the £5 million announced today, £3 million will support the World Food Programme to buy and distribute food rations, and £2 million will help the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide water and emergency healthcare.   

Following is the financial assistance UK have given to Somalia as a humanitarian assistance thus far. 

The UK has now provided £40.9 million in humanitarian aid for those affected by drought in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Eritrea), and is the second largest bilateral donor in response to the drought after the US –both in Somalia and the region.

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Hilary Benn; The British Secretary for International Development (DFID) was quoted as saying:

The Horn of Africa is suffering its most terrible drought for more than a decade. Somalia is one of the worst-affected countries, with the UN estimating that over two million people are in need of urgent assistance.  That’s why I am increasing the UK’s contribution to the relief effort, which will help to provide food, water and emergency healthcare to the people who desperately need it.

Mr. Benn went on by saying:

Getting aid to the worst-hit areas is a challenge, especially given the security problems in Somalia. But we are supporting tried and trusted partners like the UN and the Red Cross, who are already providing relief to the most vulnerable. It is clear that more needs to be done, and I urge other donors to step forward.

Click here to view the full dispatch on the Reliefweb. You may also like to click here to view DFID’s Somalia page.

The United Nations’ Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) for Somalia issued its Monthly nutrition update  and says:

The preliminary findings of the nutrition assessment in Gedo Region (excluding Bardera Town) in March 2006 indicate a critical nutrition situation and ‘alert’ crude and under five mortality rates. Early and comprehensive interventions and strong coping strategies are likely to be preventing a greater deterioration although separate surveillance activities in targeted areas shows the levels of malnutrition have already deteriorated very dramatically. Detailed analysis of the findings is currently on-going. The findings of the Qansadheere nutrition assessment conducted in January 2006 also indicate a critical nutrition situation.

A detailed update on the current food security situation is available in FSAU’s other monthly publication ‘Food Security and Nutrition Brief’, March 2006.  Detailed data from targeted sentinel sites are also available at FSAU.

Click here to view the full report on Reliefweb.
 

The Alertnet report:   

Famine could soon claim 10,000 lives every month in Somalia if the upcoming rainy season is as dry as forecast, United Nations aid agencies said on Friday. Extensive drought across the Horn of Africa — the worst in decades — has already caused food shortages across south and central Somalia, as well as neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Some 2 million Somalis suffer from drought, and without enough rain, by September about 900,000 could be facing famine, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said. “That would translate into 10,000 to 12,000 deaths per month,” Graham Farmer, the FAO’s officer in charge for Somalia, told a press briefing.“We’re not saying that that number of people will die, we’re saying that is the risk that we are working against,” he said. The U.N. Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) nearly doubled its Somalia funding appeal to $327 million in light of rocketing food aid needs since December, when it had asked for $170 million.   

Click here to view the full dispatch on the Reuters’ AltertNet. 

“Mama” Kadija, Amina and me will spend the day tomorrow at the Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC. In case you are wondering; no I am not getting a hip replacement or anything like that! We will be waiting for the arrival of a new member of the Ainashe family; a baby!

Unfortunately; I will not be able to update this portal before Thursday, March 30th, 2006. Please bear with us! Thank you.

David Michalski of Medecins Sans Frontieres’  Head of Mission in Galgaduud, Somalia was quoted as saying:

The area hasn’t really had international NGOs working in the region, on the ground full time, for years and years and years. It has been really abandoned.

David Michalski  went on by saying:

Now it has also been abandoned because there have been a lot of security issues. You know, it is not that people simply forgot about it. But there have been difficulties in the past.

Click here to view the full report on Medecins Sans Frontieres’ website. You may also like to clicke here to view MSF’s Somalia page.

The United Nations’ Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia made a Press Release announcing the launch of a new online Digital Library (DILI) for Somalia. 

I checked it and I liked it a lot; loads of online resources on Somalia! Check it out by clicking here. 

Mr. Rodrigo de Rato, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement in Washington D.C. following his meeting with Kenya’s Finance Minister, Mr. Amos Kimunya, on March 27. “I have had the privilege of meeting Kenya’s new Finance Minister, Mr. Kimunya. We held productive discussions on food security, governance, and on issues related to the completion of the second review under Kenya’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) arrangement with the Fund”. “I noted with deep concern the reports of immediate food insecurity in parts of Kenya and appreciated Minister Kimunya’s assessment of the drought implications. The recent drought follows several seasons of poor rains and is Kenya’s worst since 2003. It is currently estimated that about 3.5 million people are in need of emergency assistance.  “Against this background, I urge the international donor community to respond generously and pro-actively in addressing the food needs of Kenya’s people. It will be critical to respond in a timely manner to avoid the human tragedies and adverse economic consequences that have all too often been associated with droughts in the past.   

I hope that the Kenyan authorities will spend the money they receive from the IMF to help the intended recipients; the Somali people in the Kenyan occupied Somali region of NFD. 

Click here to view the full press release by the IMF. 

The Alertnet Reports: 

The European Commission signed a pact giving political recognition to Somalia’s interim government on Tuesday and pledged more aid to the war-weary Horn of Africa nation, hit by fresh violence in recent days. The signing of a “Memorandum of Understanding” with Somali leaders is an attempt by the European Union executive to encourage EU states and others to recognize the government after last month’s opening of an interim parliament on home soil. “I gave assurances of moral, political and material support,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said after the signing of the memorandum with Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi. Barroso said the Commission would next month urge EU states to release a further 70 million euros ($84 million) in assistance to Somalia on top of the 200 million euros it has already granted, mainly through United Nations agencies. 

Click here to view the full dispatch on the REUTERS’ AlertNet. 

The EU strengthened relations with Somalia and stepped up aid for the troubled country on Tuesday. European commission president José Manuel Barroso and development commissioner Louis Michel signed a memorandum of understanding with Somalia’s president Abdullahi Yusuf. Addressing a press conference in Brussels, Michel assured Somalis that the EU had not forgotten their bloody domestic conflict. “For 15 years Europe has been supporting Somali people. This memorandum sets out key principles which will govern our co-operation,” he explained.  It is hoped that Somalia’s recently instated transitional institutions will provide the EU with a partner for peace in the troubled region.  “The memorandum gives Somalia the political backing it needs and also recognises the transitional government as a partner,” a commission spokesman explained.  But despite the transitional government Somalia remains a volatile and dangerous place.

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The Islamic Republic News Agency reports:

The European Commission and the Somali Transitional Federal Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Brussels Tuesday turning a new page in EU-Somalia relations. “It is really a milestone that marks the commitment of Somalia of becoming an active member of the community of nations after all the difficult moments that Somalia has had in the past,” President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters this afternoon. Barroso and Louis Michel, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, signed the MoU with Somalia’s President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Ghedi. “We are very happy to sign this document because it opens the door for Somalia to the community of nations,” said Yusuf Ahmed. On his part Ghedi said it was an “historic event.” The signing of the MoU is an important step towards possible accession of Somalia to the ACP-EU Partnership agreement, known as the Cotonou agreement. Louis Michel said “this is a very important step in the coming home to the international community for Somalia”. The European Commission has played a vital role both financially and politically for the establishment of the transitional institutions following the Somali peace process initiated in October 2002.

Click here to view the full dispatch on IRNA. 

The Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) issued a dire warning for the Kenyan occupied Somali region of Northern Frontier District (NFD), also known as Southwest Somalia.

As anticipated, food insecurity worsened even further in the drought-hit northeastern districts.  The deterioration in the welfare of pastoralists, poor livestock body conditions, the upsurge in human and livestock diseases, exceptionally high livestock mortalities, declining pastoral terms of trade and inadequate interventions (especially in the water and health sectors) have all combined and severely compromise the viability of the lives and livelihoods of pastoralists.  The long-rains season is expected to begin in the next two weeks in the pastoral areas.  Should the rains fail to start on time and establish during April, the pastoral livelihood could be decimated as pre-famine conditions are already evident in Mandera, Wajir, Garissa and Marsabit districts.  The only source of food, water and health care would then be emergency food and non-food interventions critical in saving lives.  However, at the moment, the crisis overwhelms available resources. 

As the report concludes “the crisis overwhelms available resources”. Hence, a large scale of humanitarian assistance is needed. 

Click here to view the full report on FEWS.

As animals die by their hundreds each minute due to the severe drought that is ravaging Somalia, the livelihoods of millions of Somali pastoralists die along with it! Consequently, those who lost everything their lives depended upon will have no choice but to migrate to the more urban areas and into the Somali cities and towns with all economic and political repurcussions that comes along with it. Sadly, this is the looming human tragedy that no one is talking about. 

Copy Right (picture): Jason Beaubien; Africa Correspondent for the National Public Radio (NPR). You may like to click here to view Jason Beaubien’s dispatches from the drought devestated Somalia

 

Copy Right: Jason Beaubien; Africa Correspondent for the National Public Radio (NPR). You may like to click here to view Jason Beaubien’s dispatches from the drought devestated Somalia. 

A Somali mother fleeing with her starving children! 

Copy Right: Jason Beaubien; Africa Correspondent for the National Public Radio (NPR). You may like to click here to view Jason Beaubien’s dispatches from the drought devestated Somalia. 

Copy Right: Jason Beaubien; Africa Correspondent of the National Public Radio (NPR). You may like to click here to view Jason Beaubien’s dispatches from the drought devestated Somalia. 

Starving Somalis in the Kenyan occupied region of Somali NFD.

Following is map showing “Meteosat Rainfall Estimation (RFE)” for somalia (3/11 - 20, 2006). 

The Meteosat Rainfall Estimation (RFE) imagery is an automated (computer-generated) product which uses Meteosat infrared data, rain gauge reports from the global telecommunications system, and microwave satellite observations within an algorithm to provide RFE in mm at an approximate horizontal resolution of 10 km. The main use of these data is to provide input for hydrological and agro meteorological models as well as to provide climate information e.g. compare the current state of rainfall with previous time periods.

Copy Right: FEWS

Following is a picture showing “Normalized Difference Vegetation Index”(NDVI) for Somalia (3/11 - 20, 2006). 

The NDVI imagery is calculated from the red and near infra-red reflectance observed by the AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) sensor on NOAA meteorological satellites. Processed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, the data are represented as pixels (cells), with each pixel representing an area of 8.0 x 8.0 km. NDVI values range between -1 and +1, with dense vegetation having higher values (e.g., 0.4 - 0.7), and lightly vegetated regions having lower values (e.g., 0.1 - 0.2). 

No wonder there is a drought!

Copy Right: FEWS

The crisis in southern Somalia is rapidly deteriorating with continued pre-famine conditions evident throughout the affected areas.  About 2.1 people either face a humanitarian emergency or acute food and livelihood crises, according to the Somalia Food Security Assessment Unit’s Phase Classification System.  The possibility of a poor March ? May or Gu season this year and the poor response to the crisis so far, mean there is a high risk of famine.  In Gedo, Juba valley, Bay and Bakool regions, increased population movements have been reported during the last two weeks.  These movements are mainly towards permanent water sources and main towns in search of water, food, employment and social support.  Limited cross border population movements into Kenya were also reported in the Juba Valley and Gedo regions. Due to severe shortages, cereal prices continued to increase.  In the Juba Valley maize prices were more than 200 percent higher than at this time during the last drought (February 2003).  Due to poor body condition and lack of demand in the local markets, livestock prices, especially for cattle, are less than 50 percent of February 2005 prices. 

Click here for the full dispatch on the Reuters’ AlertNet.

The UN Wire Reports:  

After a fatal shooting forced its staff to withdraw from a distribution centre in southern Somalia, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) appealed today to leaders and militias throughout the faction-torn country to grant access and protection to aid agencies helping 1.4 million victims of a worsening drought emergency. “Continued insecurity and interruptions to assistance have the potential to kill thousands of Somalis, as surely as bombs and bullets,” WFP country director Zlatan Milisic said of Tuesday’s fire-fight between two militias at the distribution centre where agency-contracted trucks were unloading food. “Targeting humanitarian assistance is totally unacceptable. It is callous and violates all international humanitarian principles. Humanitarian agencies cannot operate where assistance is being targeted. We are already seriously challenged by the logistics of this mission and shouldn’t have to watch our backs as well. We rely on Somali leaders to guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers and cargo,” he added

Click here to view the full dispatch by the UN Newswire. 

Following is Press Release by Louis Michel; the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid.

IP/06/368.. Brussels, 23 March 2006

The European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, launches today in Brussels the programming cycle for the 10th EDF (European Development Fund) for the East Africa and Indian Ocean region. This fourth Regional Seminar will be attended by the highest officials responsible for co-operation with Europe from the 12 countries of the region: Seychelles, Maurice, Sudan, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda, Comoros, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. In December 2005, the European Council adopted a financial envelope for the 10th EDF which comes to €22.7billion for the period 2008–2013. The 9th EDF which covered the period 2002–2007 had been allocated the sum of €13.5 billion. Good performance and respect for the commitments taken – especially with regard to good governance, sound management of public funds and efficient administration – are key factors for the increase in aid allocations towards each country. 

Click here to view the original text (available both as HTML and PDF) on the EU website.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had released what it calls “Humanitarian coordination mechanisms in Somalia”.

Over the past years, the international response to humanitarian emergencies demonstrated that the system did not always meet the basic needs of affected populations in a timely and predictable manner. With varying responses from crisis to crisis, existing capacity levels are often insufficient to adequately meet key emergency needs in major crises. In order to better understand and correct such deficiencies, the Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), in 2005, commissioned an independent Humanitarian Response Review (HRR) of the global humanitarian system. The HRR identified a three-pronged reform programme to improve the predictability, timeliness, and effectiveness of humanitarian response:
1) Strengthening humanitarian response capacity: This sees the adoption of a cluster approach which encourages the effective use of expertise and technical know-how of mandated organizations in the particular sectors to fill identified gaps in humanitarian response, to ensure accountability with strengthened leadership and clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and to bolster coordination and synergy of efforts.

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Irish Online says:

People in southern Somalia are being forced to drink contaminated water to survive one of the worst droughts in the Horn of Africa for a decade, a food monitoring group reported today. People have started dying after drinking water unfit for human or livestock consumption as wells dry up in the region, the Food Security Analysis Unit said, citing reports received from the area. “Water availability and accessibility remains the most critical factor effecting the livelihoods and lives throughout southern Somalia,” the group said. “Most water catchments in Gedu, Juba, Bay and Bakool are now completely dry, driving livestock and people to migrate in search of water.” Malnutrition is rising among people hit by the drought, which the group say is likely to worsen in the coming months. Clashes between rival groups over scarce water supplies and pastures have increased.

Click here for more related stories on IOL. 

The Bahraini News Agency reports:

More than two million people face starvation in Somalia, the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in Somalia, Mr. Christian Balslev Olsen told the British daily `The Guardian.  Mr.Olsen warned of a humanitarian crisis if urgent relief aids are not received. Children are not seen dying on TV screens but this will probably happen soon, said Olsen The Guardian says relief workers are expecting a humanitarian catastrophe if rains do not fall between April and June. 

SOURCE: Bahraini News Agency (BNA) 

United Nations Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) says:

The drought-induced food security crisis in parts of southern Somalia has deteriorated so fast that it has led to increased migration of people and livestock, a United Nations Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) has said. “Distressed livestock and human migration, both of whole and split families, are continuing and increasing throughout the worst-affected areas,” FSAU said in its monthly brief for March. “In Gedo region, the epicentre of the crisis, the majority of the pastoralists and agro-pastoralists have already either out-migrated to neighbouring regions of Bay and Lower and Middle Juba or to riverine areas within Gedo in search of pasture and water.” An estimated 1.7 million people in northern, central and southern Somalia are facing an acute food and livelihood crisis or humanitarian emergency because of prevailing drought. Preliminary estimates said that number would rise to 1.8 million - including 800,000 highly vulnerable children - over the coming months. The regions likely to be at highest risk include Middle Juba, Lower Juba, Bay and Bakol.

Click here to view the full dispatch on the AlertNet. 

Martin Seemungal of ABC News sent this dispatch from Wajir city of the Kenyan occupied Somali region of NFD.  

The scrubby grasslands of northeast Kenya have all but turned to dust. The nomads, who move from place to place to find water and food for their precious cattle, have given up looking for green pastures. The land is dead. It has killed whole herds of cows, and even camels seem to be dying. The nomads understand it is only a matter of time before the people start dying too. The Horn of Africa is facing its worst drought in two decades, and nearly 6 million people in Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Kenya are at risk of dying. The situation is so dire that Africans have come to rely more and more on various sources of foreign aid, which unfortunately, all lack for funds.

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Click here to view the full dispatch on ABC News.

The United Nations has launched a new revised humanitarian appeal for the drought-stricken Somalia and Somali regions in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Aid agencies have launched a revised appeal for US $326.7 million to avert a humanitarian disaster in drought-stricken Somalia, where some 2.1 million people are threatened with starvation following several successive seasons of failed rains. “This current drought is unprecedented in 10 years, and the impact it is having on food, water, health, education and livelihoods is alarming,” said Christian Balslev-Olesen, the United Nations acting humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, during the launch of the revised Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) on Tuesday. Humanitarian agencies had asked for $174 million in December 2005 to help drought-affected people in Somalia. As of 20 March, donors had committed $79,703,293 million - about 25 percent of the funds required to sustain humanitarian operations in Somalia until the end of 2006.

Click here to view the full dispatch on IRIN News. 

There is a fundraising event organized by the Somali community in Minnesota in association with Somali student in that state. The fundraising event is for the benefit of the starving Somalis in the drought hit regions of our country. As the saying goes, “daawanaayow waa dalkaagii…

FEATURING:
Documentary on the drought
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota)
And many other prominent Somali and American speakers
TIME:
Friday, March 24, 2006. 6:00-10:00 PM
LOCATION:
Sabathani Community Center: 310 E 38th St. Minneapolis, MN. 55409. USA.