Famine, said Bowden, is officially declared when acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 percent and when more than two people per 10,000 die every day.
Today, malnutrition rates in Somalia are the highest in the world; in some parts of the south, more than half of all children are severely malnourished. In some areas of Bakool and Lower Shabelle, six children per 10,000 younger than 5 are dying every day, Bowden said.
The United Nations declared famine in parts of southern Somalia, signalling to donors the need for more aid. International aid agencies will not travel into Somalia due to the influence of Islamic insurgents affiliated with al Qaeda, leading many to flee the country. (July 20)
“In Somalia, 20 years without a central government and the relentless terrorism by al-Shabab against its own people has turned an already severe situation into a dire one that is only expected to get worse,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.
Humanitarian funding to help Somalia has declined since 2008, U.N. officials say. The United States, once Somalia’s largest donor, has reduced humanitarian funding by 88 percent, according to a September 2010 report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In 2008, the United States provided $237.4 million. In 2009, it gave $99.6 million; in 2010, roughly $28 million.
This year, the United States has given $78 million, including the $28 million announced Wednesday, U.S. officials said.
The decline in U.S. assistance to Somalia came after the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, concerned about the diversion of aid by Islamist militants, imposed restrictions on agencies working in areas controlled by al-Shabab and froze some funding in March 2009.
U.N. officials are also concerned that Washington’s intensifying targeting of al-Shabab through drone strikes and other means could impede their access to Somalis in famine-stricken areas. “It does complicate our efforts,” Bowden said. “It increases their suspicions of humanitarian organizations.”
Since early 2010, al-Shabab has also prevented aid agencies from delivering assistance to large swaths of Somalia. The militants lifted the ban this month, but Bowden said the United Nations was still having a “dialogue” with them to allow international aid workers to enter famine-afflicted areas.
“Every day of delay in assistance is literally a matter of life or death for children and their families in the famine-affected areas,” Bowden said.
In her statement Wednesday announcing the new U.S. aid, Clinton said the United States remains “cautiously optimistic that al-Shabab will permit unimpeded international assistance in famine-struck areas.”
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