Mark Bowden, the UN’s chief aid representative in Somalia, says that during the past year the Horn of Africa drought and famine crisis has claimed “tens of thousands of lives” in Somalia alone. Bowden estimates that the famine will last for at least another six or seven months, and during that time 250,000 Somalis will remain at severe risk of starvation.
While the over-stretched African Union is doing what it can in Somalia – with some success – to combat al-Shabaab and other terrorist groups and militias, it is neither properly equipped nor trained to manage the kind of meaningful relief effort required to ensure that as few as possible of those 250,000 Somali people succumb to starvation or related illnesses. Only the United Nations is capable of mounting an operation on the scale required.
When one considers how many lives were lost across the Horn of Africa because the international community failed to react quickly enough to its own early warning system that famine was imminent, this would seem the least that could be done for the people of Somalia.
John O’Shea
CEO, Goal
