Horn of Africa Famine 'Immoral' - UN (REPORT - UPDATED)

A Somali woman arrives at a refugee camp with her infant. UNICEF has called the ongoing famine and drought as a children catastrophe. CREDIT: FAO(HN, - UPDATED July 25, 2011) - A senior UN official has described the ongoing famine in parts of Somalia as "immoral."

Cristina Amaral, the head of emergency operations in Africa for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), who has been raising the alarm on the spreading drought in the Horn of Africa since last November, is calling for long-term investment to help farmers resist droughts and international intervention to bring peace to war-torn Somalia.

"When we have a declaration of famine in the 21st century, we should consider this immoral," Amaral was quoted as saying in an interview.

She made the remarks on the eve of an emergency meeting today (Monday) in Rome to address the escalating crisis in the Horn of Africa and mobilize international support. FAO's 191 member countries, other UN agencies and international organizations, development banks and non-governmental organizations are attending.

Livestock carcasses mark turn of this drought from bad to deadly in Wajir, Kenya. Credit: Josette Sheeran/WFPAccess to war-torn Somalia is crucial to dealing with the crisis, Amaral said.  "Without access to south Somalia, we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg — those refugees arriving in Kenya and Ethiopia," Amaral said. "There are many more — we estimate 3.7 million — that need emergency assistance," she added.

Last week, the UN declared a famine in two parts of southern Somalia: the Bakool agropastoral livelihood zones and all areas of Lower Shabelle.

This morning (Monday), FAO chief, Jacques Diouf, said nothing short of "massive" action will save the millions of people at risk.

"The catastrophic situation demands massive and urgent international aid," he said.

The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), Josette Sheeran, who just visited three drought-affected countries, including Somalia, said the Rome-based agency is currently reaching about 1.5 million Somalis with emergency food assistance, including several hundred thousand in Mogadishu, the capital. However access is still difficult: WFP alone has lost 14 staff since 2008 in the war-torn country.

Sheeran said the long, dangerous trip out of the famine regions in southern Somalia is claiming many lives, particularly of children too young and weakened by malnutrition to survive the journey. She described the condition of children as "the worst I have ever seen."

She said: “Over half the women I talked to had to leave children to die, or had children die” during their journeys, Sheeran said.  “These are becoming roads of death.”

“In the Horn (of Africa), we could lose a generation. Those that survive could be affected deeply,” she said.

According to the FAO, famine is classified using a tool called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. according to three main criteria: severe lack of food access for large populations, acute malnutrition rates exceeding 30 percent of the population and Crude Death Rate exceeding 2 people per 10,000 population per day. Currently in some parts of Bakool and Lower Shabelle acute malnutrition tops 50 percent and death rates exceed six per 10,000 population per day.

A rare combination of conflict and insecurity, limited access for humanitarian organizations, successive harvest failures and a lack of food assistance have jeopardized an entire population in southern Somalia, FAO says. The country has suffered war on and off since 1991.Innovation on the front-lines of hunger: Somali NGO brings water to displaced people in donkey-cart. Credit: Josette Sheeran/WFP

The international community requires around $1 billion to deal with the crisis. The FAO is appealing for $120 million to respond to the drought in the Horn of Africa and provide agricultural emergency assistance.

The current crisis affects the whole Horn of Africa region including the northern part of Kenya and southern parts of Ethiopia, Djibouti and the Karamoja Region of Uganda where large areas are classified as in a state of humanitarian emergency.