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U.S.: 29,000 Somali kids have died in last 90 days
A malnourished Somalia refugee child is seen at a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee in Dadaab, Kenya, Aug. 3, 2011. / AP Photo
NAIROBI, Kenya - A U.S. official says the famine in Somalia has killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5.
The United Nations has said that tens of thousands of people have died in the Horn of Africa's drought and famine, but the U.S. estimate is the first precise death toll offered in the crisis.
Nancy Lindborg, an official with the U.S. government aid arm, told a congressional committee in Washington on Wednesday that the U.S. estimates that more than 29,000 children under age 5 have died in the last 90 days in southern Somalia.
The U.N. on Wednesday declared three new regions in Somalia famine zones. Out of a population of roughly 7.5 million, the U.N. says 3.2 million Somalis are in need of immediate lifesaving assistance.
Getting aid to the country has been difficult because al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab controls much of the country's most desperate areas.
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Even before Somalia's worst drought in 60 years, many of the country's children have only known strife during their lives.
At a government rehabilitation facility in Mogadishu last week, The Associated Press obtained rare access to former al-Shabab child soldiers, providing a unique view into the workings of the group whose presence in much of Somalia is stymieing international efforts to provide emergency aid.
The former fighters assigned to a drab cement housing bloc are young -- too young. One is only 9, yet they were enforcers of harsh edicts from Islamist militants who are preventing thousands of Somalis from escaping famine.
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The hardline militant group routinely recruits young teenagers, kidnapping them from schools and forcibly removing them from homes. Last week three teenage fighters surrendered to the African Union military force during a military offensive.
The most recent arrival at the rehab center, 17-year-old Abshir Mohammed Abdi, said "there was no life, no prospects" inside al-Shabab, which he belonged to for 1? years before escaping to the camp last week. Abdi is from the country's south -- Kismayo -- where Somalia's famine is hitting hardest.
Abdi said many there are suffering, with al-Shabab fighters trying to stop the flow of refugees toward food, an outflow that threatens to diminish the population from which al-Shabab draws its conscripts and collects its taxes. Al-Shabab has denied a famine is taking place.
"Even with women and children suffering from drought, al-Shabab would stop them, stop them, stop them until they couldn't stop them anymore," Abdi said, suggesting that the wave of famine refugees was too much for the militants to stanch.
Somalis who have fled the famine zones and reached Mogadishu told AP that militants are threatening refugees who leave the south and often stopping -- and sometimes killing -- the men, leading to a disproportionate number of women and children in displaced-persons camps in the capital. One of the young former fighters, who spoke to AP through an interpreter while standing under a shade tree at the rehabilitation facility, said al-Shabab also uses threats to keep Somali men within the famine zones.
"What they would tell the men is that your women and children would be killed if you leave," said Ali Hassan, who like many of the former teen fighters wore a colorful track suit that looked like it was made by Nike but instead said "Nile Sports."
The two dozen young men, mostly teens, said there were killers among them, though no one dared specify who. One bearded fighter in his 20s suggested that he had carried out beheadings.
What is striking about the former al-Shabab members is how young they are. The youngest at the center is Liban Mohammed, a shy boy of 9. Al-Shabab used him as a spy.
Most children recruited by armed groups in Somalia appear to be between 12 and 18, though some are as young as 8, Amnesty International said in a report last month. Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 is a war crime, the group noted.
"This is a never-ending conflict, where children are experiencing unimaginable horrors on a daily basis," said Amnesty's Michelle Kagari. "They risk becoming a lost generation if the world continues to ignore the war crimes affecting so many of them."
The children, who come from a desperately poor region where government can't function, are lured into joining al-Shabab through the promises of phones and money. Forcible recruitment and kidnapping are common. The government also stands accused of using child soldiers.
One official who is helping watch after the former child soldiers said executions were a part of al-Shabab's recruitment process, in order to instill fear. Many saw their friends die, he said.
"What they were promised was riches, and as the drought kicked in they were given handfuls of rice as payment," said the man, who did not give his name.
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Second, I won't be a proponent to passing on this never ending cycle of guilt to my children. I grew up on stories of starving people in East Africa, as did my father before me. The result is always the same. People pay to send aid that keeps them alive just long enough to produce more starving children. Yes, it sounds incredibly cruel to say it, but isn't more cruel to bring a child into stuation in which you know he/she will be starving in? The "World" is trying to send a message that it no longer wants people living in that area. At the very least we are prolonging their suffering and at worst we are funding the Militias that are keeping this aid from reaching anyone.
Either way the solution is one that sounds horrible but is the only way to stop future generations from going through this, both starving and guilt ridden. Let nature take its course. Let that area die.
I'm not heartless but I have to become NUMB to news stories like this, trying to stay alive and healthy in the 115° heat wave we have here in OK. Plus towns without water and fires destroying homes. These countries may not be beyond help in the long run, but there's no band-aids that can help them anywhere in the near future.