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.