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Africa famine experts: 800,000 children may die
Mihag Gedi Farah, a seven-month-old child with a weight of 3.4kg, is held by his mother in a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee, IRC, in the town of Dadaab, Kenya, Tuesday, July 26, 2011. / AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam
DADAAB, Kenya - Mihag Gedi Farah is 7 months old, and weighs as little as a newborn with the weathered skin of an old man.
His mother managed to get him to a field hospital in a Kenyan refugee camp after a weeklong odyssey, but the baby's anguished eyes, hollow cheeks and fragile limbs show just how severe Somalia's famine is becoming.
Officials have warned that 800,000 children could die across the Horn of Africa, and aid workers are rushing to bring help to dangerous and previously unreached regions of drought-ravaged Somalia.
How to help: InterAction website
U.N. races aid to Somalia famine victims
Mihag's sunken face brings new urgency to their efforts and raises concerns about how many children like him remain in Somalia, far from the feeding tubes and doctors at this Kenyan refugee camp.
His fragile skin crumples like thin leather under the pressure of his mother's hands, as she touches the hollows where a baby's chubby cheeks should be.
Faces of famine
Sirat Amine, a nurse nutritionist with the International Rescue Committee, puts the little boy's odds of survival at just 50-50. Mihag weighs just 7 pounds, 8 ounces when a boy his age should weigh nearly three times that.
"We never tell the mother, of course, that their baby might not make it," the nurse says. "We try to give them hope."
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Mihag is the youngest of seven children in his family. His mother brought him along with four of his siblings on the journey from Kismayo to northern Kenya after all their sheep and cattle died because of drought.
Like the tens of thousands of other Somalis fleeing starvation, the family traveled by foot, other times catching rides with passing trucks, cars or buses.
His mother, Asiah Dagane, isn't sure of her age but appears in her mid-30s. She sits at her baby's bedside with little to say: "In my mind I'm not well. My baby is sick. In my head I am also sick," she says softly.
The United Nations estimates that more 11 million people in East Africa are affected by the drought, with 3.7 million in Somalia among the worst-hit because of the ongoing civil war in the country.
Famine grips Somalia
Somalia's prolonged drought devolved into famine in part because neither the Somali government nor many aid agencies can fully operate in areas controlled by al Qaeda-linked militants, and the U.N. is set to declare all of southern Somalia a famine zone as of Aug. 1.
Aid organizations including the U.N. World Food Program have not been able to access areas under the control of the al-Shabab militants, who have killed humanitarian workers and banned the WFP.
The U.N. has said it will airlift emergency rations later this week in an effort to try and reach at least 175,000 of the 2.2 million Somalis who have not been helped yet.
The new feeding efforts in the four districts of southern Somalia near the border with Kenya and Ethiopia could begin by Thursday, slowing the flow of tens of thousands of people who have fled their homes in hope of reaching aid.
But the WFP hasn't operated there for more than two years, and must find and rehire former employees to help with distribution. Transportation is also a substantial obstacle, as land mines have severed key roads and a landing strip has fallen into disrepair.
Donations are also desperately needed to sustain the aid effort in the Horn of Africa: The U.N. wants to gather $1.6 billion in the next 12 months, with $300 million of that coming in the next three months.
On Wednesday, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said a coordination conference is due to be held Wednesday in the Kenyan capital.
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dogsoul said, "...and really - education? You mean to tell me these Africans haven't figured out the birds & the bees yet? I'm fairly certain they know full well where babies come from, especially after their fourth starving child..."
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The East African crisis arrived in stages, with families losing their livelihood and assets to famine conditions-- not irresponsibility. That same famine is an increasingly serious warning to the rest of us about climate change underway throughout the world.
Responsibility for relief lies with us, because climate crisis is created by industrial-age pollution our factories, power plants and cars generate (scientists call it "global warming").
Despite their appalling poverty and poor general health, the world's poor pay more and suffer first, as wealthy nations continue to dump their pollution and garbage onto the rest of the world.
Our disruption of climate is the worst irresponsibility possible since it has such devastating effects worldwide, and our role cannot be denied by blaming the crisis on poor population control in East Africa, or elsewhere.
The complacent, ignorant and over-fed Archie Bunkers claiming to understand about "the birds and the bees" should apply the same effort to their own stewardship of this planet, and to their responsibility to fellow human beings.
So the only thing i have to say is, keeps your pants on.
You're "absolutely right" ccdss! And you say, IN THE MEANTIME, LET THOSE D*** BABIES STARVE TO DEATH!! After all, it's ENTIRELY their fault that they were born!
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Nope I'm saying it's their parents fault they were born and it should be their parent's responsibility and their parents country's responsibility to take care of them! I don't see Africa coming to the aide of the thousands of homeless, starving, dieing children on our streets. I'm sorry you just cannot get blood from a stone. Why are we trying to give what we DO NOT HAVE. In ONE WEEK there may be millions of our own people who will have NO MEANS OF FEEDING THEMSELVES WHEN THEIR INCOME GETS COMPLETELY CUT OFF CAUSE NO ONE CAN MAKE A DARN DECISION! Where is the outcry for our own people?!?!?
Where is the outcry for our own people?!?!?
It is horrifying to see these children, but you are right. Charity starts at home. You need to look after yourselves, first, before you can be any good to others. The U.S. hasn't been looking after it's own, and it needs to start. The fact that the U.S didn't have health care for all people is quite disgraceful, really, considering that most other countries do, and that the U.S. is, or was, considered to be the BEST country in the world!
I think you're taking a bit of a "blame the victim" position here. There could be SEVERAL reasons why these people had children. First and foremost, they don't have access to the same birth control methods that the rest of the world does, nor do they have any sex education. Secondly, they may have gotten pregnant BEFORE the famine struck. Thirdly, women in Africa don't have the same rights and privileges that most women in the western world do - they are expected to submit to their husbands.
But regardless, the IMPORTANT point is that these poor people are starving and suffering. It's tragic and heartbreaking.
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No one is saying that it isn't tragic and heart breaking. It's def. not fair that these innocent children must pay for the mistakes of their parents. But this famine is NOTHING NEW. Most these young children you see are children who were conceived DURING the famine that was already going on! I'm not even talking about just the women, where are the men in these families? We know these were not immaculate conceptions! You always see pictures of the women and children, where the heck are the men who got the women pregnant?!?! I'm sorry, even animals know not to have young when there is no food to feed them. There are some animals who can keep an egg from being fertilized until food is more abundant. You can't tell me that even an uneducated person whether they be male or female, cant put two and two together and say, "Well, I cant feed myself, maybe I shouldn't make any other little humans till I CAN feed myself!". I'm sure the men in these countries know how babies are made. They need to take a role in this as well as they have half the responsibility in the conception to begin with! No one is saying it's all the women's fault.
99% of Americans sit and complain about any and every thing! They sit around and maintain the record for being the fattest country in the world. They sit around and complain about giving charitable food donations to other countries in need because they are fat and greedy. Europe is helping out, but then looks back and see the US sitting on their obese behinds complaining.
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Well then, lets start this altruistic revolution with you. Take all your belongings, sell everything you have, get on a plane, and take them all of your money and live there and help them. I don't see you with your check book out, or going over there and personally assisting them? So if we're all so lazy and horrible because we're not doing everything in our power to assist them, then what's your excuse? Cause believe me if you are doing everything you can to assist them, you don't have the time or means to be commenting on this board.