Ainashe.net

According to Islam online news service:  

Muslim aid organizations in Britain have stepped up assistance to East Africa and launched urgent donation campaigns as the region has been hit by the worst drought wave in living memory. Islamic Relief (IR) is providing emergency assistance in the Mandera region of Kenya in the north-east, the London-based Muslim aid group said in a press release on its website Saturday, April 8. “Emergency water distribution continues in Kabo and Kamor-Libaan in Lafey division where 2000 people receive 10,000lts of water daily,” it said. Water distributions to five more villages in the Lafey area are being organized. A Supplementary Feeding Program is providing food each week to almost 600 malnourished children, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and the elderly in Kamor-Libaan, Damasa, Libehiya and Kabo.

Click here to view the full article on Islam on Line. You may also like to click here to contribute to their online campaign for the drought devastated Somali people of Somalia, NFD and Western Somalia (Ogaden). 

“It’s no good saving people today just to see them killed tomorrow”.

Jan Egeland

Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs

United Nations 

According to USAID:   

The United States funded development programs in Somalia are aimed at increasing the number of self sustainable civil society organizations that contribute to good governance and peace building with cooperative, productive linkages with regional and local authorities. USAID supports community-based reconciliation efforts, assisting local community-based grassroots institutions and organizations to formulate civil society-oriented democracy and effective governance across Somalia. USAID also supports basic education with the aim of increasing girls’ enrollment rates and improving teacher education. Assistance includes building the capacity of teacher training institutes, training for primary teachers, rehabilitating classrooms, providing water and sanitation facilities at schools and mobilizing communities to promote girls’ education. USAID uses Development Assistance (DA), Economic Support Funds (ESF), International Disaster and Famine Account (IDFA), and food assistance to implement an Integrated Strategic Plan (ISP).   

Click here to learn more on United States “Economic Development” assistance to Somalia. You may also like to click here to view “2006 Congressional Budget Justification for Somalia”.  Here is also USAID’s Somalia page.

President George W. Bush announced that the United States is sending $92 million (A74.7 million) in aid to prevent widespread famine and alleviate the causes of hunger in the Horn of Africa, currently in the throes of severe drought. The U.S. aid he announced Thursday is in addition to more than $150 million (A121.8 million) in emergency humanitarian food and other assistance the United States already has provided to the region since October 2005. 

Click here to view the full report on the Sudan Tribune. 

According to the “March Monthly Brief” of Food Security and Nutrition of Somalia by the United Nations’ Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia:  

The food security situation in crisis areas in the South is continuing to deteriorate at an accelerated rate.   

Click here to view the full report (PDF) on the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) website. 

The Chicago Tribune writes:

Somalia’s fragile new government risks collapse unless donors contribute millions of dollars to alleviate drought that has wiped out half the nation’s livestock, a UN official said Tuesday.The entire Horn of Africa is in the grips of the worst drought in a decade, but Somalia is in particular danger of slipping into full-blown famine, said Christian Balslev-Olesen, the acting humanitarian coordinator for the nation. The UN is asking for $326 million for Somalia. Without help, up to 80 percent of the nation’s livestock could die and southern areas could see 10,000 to 12,000 human deaths each month, Balslev-Olesen said.   

Items compiled from Chicago Tribune news services. Published April 5, 2006 

During the reopening ceremony of the Somali Embassy in Addis Abba, Cali Maxamed Geedi; the Prime Minister of the Somali Transitional Federal Government was quoted as saying:

“The reopening of the embassy marks the end of the artificial misunderstanding and animosity that has existed between the two countries.”

Click here to view the dispatch by Reuters news agency (South Africa). 

Marie-Louise Gumuchian of the Reuters News Agency reports:

Insecurity is hampering aid efforts and the WFP says delivering food to the needy in a country that barely functions is a logistical nightmare. Pirates hijacked two WFP ships last year, forcing the agency back on to the country’s dangerous roads. A U.N. aid worker was kidnapped this year and a recent food delivery was stopped when an exchange of fire between militias killed one person. “(It is) very difficult, very hard, very unpredictable, very unstable but we don’t have a choice…We try to do our best,” said Zlatan Milisic, WFP country director for Somalia. “There are too many men with guns in Somalia but that’s the environment in which these vulnerable people find themselves.” Khalil, who travels the most difficult routes, is in constant contact with his drivers by mobile and satellite phones. The convoys are guarded by armed men who sit on top.

Click here to view the full article on the Reuters website. 

The United Nations has granted just over US $1.7 million from the newly created Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to the UN World Health Organization (WHO) for life-saving programmes in the Horn of Africa. “The WHO and partners will work to strengthen immunisation campaigns, epidemiological surveillance and training of health professionals in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia,” a statement from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday. The CERF - launched in March and aimed at helping create quicker, more predictable UN funding for crises - aims to have a total of $500 million in grants and loans ready for UN agencies to use within three to four days of the start of an emergency. The individual distribution of the latest disbursement per country amounts to $70,000 for Djibouti, $450,000 for Eritrea, $350,000 for Ethiopia, $430,000 for Kenya, and $404,540 for Somalia. “When we think of life-saving aid, vaccinations are often the first thing that comes to mind. In major emergencies such as the drought now affecting East Africa, diseases that cost less than one dollar to prevent, kill,” said Margareta Wahlström, Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator. “Immediate funding for immunisations and surveillance will help us prevent unnecessary deaths.”  

As always, UN actions are at best too little too late! 

Click here to view the full dispatch on the AlertNet. 

More than 10,000 people could soon die from famine every month in Somalia if a severe drought persists, according to UN aid agencies. The extensive drought affecting the Horn of Africa has already caused food shortages across south and central Somalia, as well as in neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Around two million Somalis are affected by drought, and if it does not rain soon, then about 900,000 could be facing famine by September, the Food and Agriculture Organization said on Friday. Graham Farmer, the FAO’s officer for Somalia, said “that would translate into 10,000 to 12,000 deaths per month”. “We’re not saying that that number of people will die. We are saying that is the risk that we are working against.”  

Click here to view the full article on the African News Dimension.