Famine call to UN Council

THE United Nations Human Rights Council should accept responsibility, on behalf of the world forum, for the famine spreading through eastern Africa, and should call for member countries’ cooperation to overcome the desperate food crisis there, experts said.

One of the 18 independent experts on the advisory committee to the council, Chilean academic Jose Antonio Bengoa, suggested asking for an urgent special session, to draw the attention of the international community to the gravity of the crisis in the Horn of Africa.

Bengoa described to IPS the famine conditions in five countries in the region: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, which require immediate action by the council, the UN’s top human rights body.