Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNEWSWORLD NEWSUN says 1.4 million African children at risk in famine: Why there’s...

UN says 1.4 million African children at risk in famine: Why there’s still hope

Christian Science Monitor, February 21, 2017 – Nearly 1.4 million African children are at “imminent risk” of death due to famine in four countries, according to the United Nations International Children’s Fund.
UNICEF’s announcement on Tuesday comes one day after famine was formally declared in parts of South Sudan, where 270,000 children are severely malnourished. According to the charity Save the Children, more than 1 million children in South Sudan alone are at risk of starving.
“Time is running out for more than a million children,” UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake said in statement. Around 185,000 children are at severe acute malnutrition in Somalia this year, although that number could rise, while 462,000 are dealing with severe acute malnutrition in Yemen and as many as 450,000 in Nigeria.
But, Mr. Lake added, all hope is not lost: “We can still save many lives. The severe malnutrition and looming famine are largely man-made. Our common humanity demands faster action. We must not repeat the tragedy of the 2011 famine in the Horn of Africa.”
The UN uses the word “famine” sparingly.  “A famine can be declared only when certain measures of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are met. They are: at least 20 per cent of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope; acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 per cent; and the death rate exceeds two persons per day per 10,000 persons,” according to the UN.
As all four countries face humanitarian crises as a result of ongoing conflicts, aid groups face significant challenges in reaching affected areas. South Sudan has been declared on the brink of famine twice in the past three years – but this time is different, experts say, because heavy fighting has cut off humanitarian access. Limited resources add to the difficulty of the situation, George Fominyen, the UN food program spokesman in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, told CNN that unless it can obtain “a substantial injection of funds” – $205 million – within the next six months, the program’s food supplies will run out.
By declaring a famine, the is trying to raise awareness and funds. 
Still, noted UN agencies in a report, “if sustained and adequate assistance is delivered urgently, the hunger situation can be improved in the coming months and further suffering mitigated.”
Eradicating famine in these areas for good, however, will require more than just humanitarian assistance, aid workers say. A long-term solution to the problem will involve addressing – and ending – the ongoing conflicts and violence plaguing affected regions.
“[The World Food Program] and the entire humanitarian community have been trying with all our might to avoid this catastrophe, mounting a humanitarian response of a scale that quite frankly would have seemed impossible three years ago,” Joyce Luma, country director for the World Food Program in South Sudan, which has seen its facilities looted on several occasions by armed groups, told the Los Angeles Times.
But without peace and security, she noted, “there is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve.”
While there has been an uptick in hunger and small famines in parts of Africa and other conflict-affected areas in recent years, the past 50 years have seen an overall decline in large-scale famines, giving experts some cause for optimism, as Eva Botkin-Kowacki reported for The Christian Science Monitor in June:

RELATED ARTICLES

Selected

Latest News and Articles

Most Viewed

[custom-twitter-feeds]