Call for global effort on Somalia famine relief

AUSTRALIA urged the international community yesterday to rally behind the UN relief effort in the famine-struck Horn of Africa or risk hundreds of thousands of people starving to death.

Governments worldwide and the UN have faced criticism for their slow response to the severe drought, the worst in the region for decades, affecting some eleven million people across Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

The UN World Food Program (WFP) has said it cannot reach more than two million Somalis facing starvation in areas controlled by Islamist militants, who imposed a food aid ban in 2010 and have regularly threatened relief groups.