MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) \u2014 The first U.S. Cabinet member to visit Somalia since 2015 urged the world\u2019s distracted donors Sunday to give immediate help to a country facing\u00a0deadly famine, which she calls \u201cthe ultimate failure of the international community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, heard perhaps the starkest warning yet about the crisis: Excess deaths during what is now Somalia\u2019s longest drought on record will \u201calmost certainly\u201d surpass those of the famine formally declared in the country in 2011, when more than a quarter-million people died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time, the world is looking elsewhere, many humanitarian officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMany of the traditional donors have washed their hands and\u00a0focused on Ukraine,\u201d the U.N. resident coordinator in Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, told Thomas-Greenfield during a briefing in Mogadishu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the U.S. ambassador declined to openly \u201cname and shame\u201d in her speech calling on donors for more help, saying \u201cThe countries know who we\u2019re talking about,\u201d the U.N. resident coordinator didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The European Union, for example, funded just 10% of the humanitarian response plan for Somalia last year, Abdelmoula told The Associated Press. The EU gave $74 million and the U.K. $78 million, according to U.N. data. Japan gave $27 million and Saudi Arabia $22 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United States, meanwhile, funded roughly 80%, giving $1.3 billion to Somalia since the start of the 2022 fiscal year. The ambassador announced another $40 million on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the U.S. \u201ccan\u2019t continue to pay at that level, even if there were no Ukraine,\u201d Thomas-Greenfield told the AP in an interview, adding that Washington would like to see countries in the nearby Gulf region, for example, donate more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She spelled out the fatal risks in the weeks ahead if other nations don\u2019t step up. \u201cAccording to the U.N., without contributions from other donors, critical food and nutrition assistance supporting 4.6 million people in Somalia will end\u201d by April, Thomas-Greenfield said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That will be just as a sixth consecutive rainy season in the parched country is expected to fail. The U.S. is \u201cdeeply alarmed\u201d by the dire situation, she told humanitarian officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ambassador delivered her speech in the seaside diplomatic compound at Mogadishu\u2019s international airport, where bunker-bound officials try to respond to the growing crisis compounded by the security threat posed to large parts of Somalia from al-Qaida\u2019s East Africa affiliate, al-Shabab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tens of thousands of people are thought to have died in the drought that also affects parts of neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya. More than a half-million children under the age of 5 in Somalia alone have severe acute malnutrition, according to the U.N. children\u2019s agency. Millions of livestock essential to families\u2019 health and wealth have died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the latest data assessment released last year found that Somalia had not met the benchmarks for a formal famine declaration, the U.N. and U.S. have made clear that the limited humanitarian aid has only delayed the worst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Almost 2 million hungry people in Somalia are at the crisis point where \u201cbodies start to consume themselves,\u201d a Western humanitarian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are now 2.7 million more people in need than during Somalia\u2019s last famine in 2011, the official added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About 900,000 of them have been living in areas under control of the al-Shabab extremists, complicating efforts both to understand the drought\u2019s toll and to reach people with help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the death toll from the drought remains unclear even as fears grow. \u201cI don\u2019t think any of us know the number,\u201d Thomas-Greenfield said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last Cabinet member to visit Somalia was John Kerry as secretary of state in May 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) \u2014 The first U.S. Cabinet member […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions\/2250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}