Suffering And Solutions In Somalia

Jacki Lyden in for Tom Ashbrook

We examine the worsening food crisis and famine in Somalia.

Somalia is now a land of famine after the worst drought in six decades. Twenty years of civil war between Islamic insurgents and weak governments have turned southern Somalia into a sphere of horror and death.

The United Nations made the famine official last week. Tens of thousands are already believed dead and the U.N. Secretary General says hundreds of millions of dollars need to be found immediately.

This has all left the aid workers who predicted it furious.

This hour On Point: Somalia: what happens when the world turns away from disaster.
-Jacki Lyden
Guests:

Jeffrey Gettleman, East Africa Bureau Chief for the New York Times. He wrote in 2009 about what it is like to report from Somalia, an article you can find here.

Sinead Murray, aid worker with the International Rescue Committee

E.J. Hogendoorn, Horn of Africa Project Director for the International Crisis Group .

Semhar Araia, Horn of Africa Regional Policy Advisor for Oxfam .

More:

For more of the striking images of Mihag Gedi Farah, the "frail face of famine," please click here.

Here's an album of Oxfam photos from the crisis in Somalia.

[googlemap title="Dadaab UN refugee camp" url="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&t=k&ll=0.111751,40.315104&z=14" width="500" height="500"]

Here is some video of the crisis in Somalia.

http://youtu.be/_Hr7wSDNgxI

From The Reading List:

• Associated Press: "Seven-month-old Mihag Gedi Farah is the frail face of famine in the Horn of Africa. He stares out wide-eyed almost in alarm, his skin pulled taut over his ribs and twig-like arms."

• BBC: "Here, in the aid and development hub of Kenya's capital, Nairobi, most of those involved in the relief efforts across the Horn of Africa are too busy to get distracted by finger-pointing."

• The New York Times: "MOMBASA, Kenya — The United Nations on Wednesday officially declared Somalia’s food crisis a famine in several parts of the country, with millions of people on the brink of starvation and aid deliveries complicated by the fact that Islamist militants aligned with Al Qaeda control the famine zones. "

• Foreign Policy: "In the more than a dozen times I have been to Somalia, I've visited refugee camps, insurgent hide-outs, mosques, schools, dimly lit warlord dens, and famished villages. Most of what I do is interviewing and information gathering for the news stories I write. But some of my most vivid experiences never make it into print. "