Famine Fears as Africa Reels from Drought and Conflict

Monday, February 13, 2017

Humanitarian agencies, including World Vision, are alarmed by the prospect of famine once again sweeping through Africa with devastating consequences for children.

World Vision is deeply concerned by conditions in Somalia, which has the potential to tip into a repeat of the 2010-12 famine in which 260,000 people died, including 133,000 children.

Agencies have warned that millions of people are in need of food aid in southern and eastern Africa and also Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula.

Tim Costello has just returned from two of those drought and conflict-affected countries – Somalia and South Sudan – and is available for interview.

In Somalia, more than 360,000 children under the age of five are now acutely malnourished, with 71,000 of them being severely malnourished. The number of people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance has jumped from 5 million six months ago to 6.2 million -- almost half the country's population. The number of people in "crisis and emergency" has risen from 1.1 million to 2.9 million.

This month, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Peter de Clercq, warned that unless a massive and urgent scale up of humanitarian assistance occurs in coming weeks, Somalia will slide into famine and disaster.

In South Sudan, after four years of war, 4.6 million people are now facing severe food insecurity in the world’s youngest nation, 3 million people have been forced from their homes, including one million who have fled South Sudan, and almost 200,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition – the highest ever recorded in the country.

The United Nations has warned that South Sudan’s crisis could easily tip into mass atrocities.

Picture: Nomad girl, Somalia

For further information, contact: Stuart Rintoul 0407 241 492

Media Releases, Drought, Famine, Somalia, South Sudan

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