Famine in Somalia - Intervention is a duty, not an option

YESTERDAY’S declaration by the United Nations that parts of southern Somalia are in the grip of a terrible famine confirms what various aid agencies have been saying for several months.

Sadly, there is a terrible, cyclical familiarity about people dying of hunger and drought, war and displacement in the Horn of Africa. Famine is a recurring and, it seems, an almost inevitable consequence of living in such an hostile environment. If, as is the case today, those extreme circumstances are exacerbated by unrelenting drought, soaring food prices and intensifying conflict in Somalia, and in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, the most vulnerable are made even more so. In very many instances they do not survive the crisis.

The UN has warned that the lives of millions of people, mostly women and children, are threatened today. Some 3.7 million in Somalia are affected, one-in-three children suffer malnutrition. The scale of the crisis can be seen in just one detail.

Dadaab, a huge but growing refugee camp on Kenya’s border with Somalia, is home to some 400,000 Somalis trying to escape starvation. In Irish terms that means that more than double the population of any city other than Dublin has abandoned their homes to avoid starvation. That they have fled to an area as forlorn, as arid and seemingly sterile as northern Kenya tells its own story.

And what of our role in all of this? We can be glib and say that charity begins at home. We can admit that crisis of this regularity, of this magnitude, shows our worries about negative equity in a far less daunting light. We can shrug it off and say that it’s a result of ignorance, corruption and just merciless fate. Or we can say that the famine is a product of the terror provoked by extreme Islam and find another excuse to turn away.

Just this weekend the UN resumed aid deliveries into Islamist-controlled Somalia in an effort to stem the 3,500 famine victims a day seeking refuge in neighbouring countries. Humanitarian assistance resumed for the first time in 18 months following threats and extortion by the radical Islamic militia, the Shabab.

Maybe we can behave like some rich European countries — Denmark, France and Italy — who stand accused by Oxfam of breaking aid promises. The charity — what a wet word that is in this context — charged them with “willful neglect” as an $800 million (€563.6m) aid shortfall slowed the international response. Thankfully, despite all of the demands on the public purse, Minister of State for Trade and Development Jan O’Sullivan has announced an additional €1m to combat the crisis. This will augment the €5.6m already given this year. Ireland is also funding specialist intervention on the ground.

Of course some of this will be wasted, more of it will find its way into the hands of corrupt officials, some of it will be squandered, but that is a failure of management and this is a crisis of humanity. The only real question is, even today, why can’t we give more? How can the international community stand by when its entirely feasible intervention could keep millions of people alive?