Canada Responses To UN Plead To Fight Starvation In Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan

By Winifred Bulus

Canada has pledged $119.25 million in humanitarian backing.

The Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, who spoke through the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Ahmed D. Hussen, said it was in response to the needs of 20 million people starving in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen and South Sudan.

He said women and children in the crisis affected countries were to benefit from the aid to be provided, adding that there would be provision of food and nutrition, health care services, clean water and sanitation facilities, as well as livelihoods support.

According to Marie-Claude Bibeau, “It is a human tragedy that the situation has deteriorated to the extent where we have over 20 million people facing starvation. 

“This assistance will be disbursed immediately to the most affected areas. We urge all actors in the affected countries to facilitate humanitarian access so that assistance can reach those most in need.”

Canada also made a plea to the affected countries to allow humanitarian workers access into the countries.

South Sudan which has been at war since 2013 has blocked humanitarian aid from coming into its territory to help victims.

United Nations (UN) Humanitarian Chief, Stephen O’Brien, recently made an appeal to the world to help fight hunger and starvation which has affected 20 million people in In Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan.

The Humanitarian Chief said, “The situation for people in each country is dire and without a major international response, the situation will get worse.” 

Drought In Somalia: Time Is Running Out

Four-year-old Safia Adan lies in Baidoa Regional Hospital in southern Somalia with a tube through her nose. She is suffering from severe malnutrition and dehydration. At her side her worried grandmother looks up to explain that Safia first became sick after drinking water from the local well.

“The water had changed colour but we still drank it,” says her grandmother. “We stopped after Safia became sick. We brought her to the city because we knew you could get good treatment here.”

They were lucky – seven people from their village are now confirmed dead and the hospital has seen a surge in children suffering from water-borne diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.

They are the latest victims of the on-going drought ravaging Somalia that has left more than six million people, half the country’s population, facing food shortages and has seen water supplies become infected with bacteria rendering them undrinkable.

Last week the United Nations warned that a severe famine in Somalia was a distinct possibility and noted that if the rains failed again and urgent international action was not taken the country could see a repeat of the famine of 2011, which killed more than a quarter of a million people.

“In the worst affected areas inadequate rainfall and lack of water has wiped out crops and killed livestock,” the UN said in a statement released last week. “Communities are being forced to sell their assets and borrow food and money to survive.”

Aid agencies are particularly concerned that the drought is exacerbating the country’s on-going humanitarian crisis – 365,000 children under the age of five are acutely malnourished and 71,000 of those children are in need of urgent life-saving assistance.

“This time last year we had far fewer cases but due to the drought people will use any kind of water,” says Dr Abdullah Yusuf, medical coordinator for the Baidoa Regional Hospital.

Culled from Aljazeera

Former Prime Minister, a U.S Citizen, Elected Somali’s New President

Former Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, who holds duals Somali-U.S citizenship, was on Wednesday declared Somali elected President and immediately sworn in.

He vowed to crack down on corruption and Al-Shabaab militants.

The 55-year-old former premier, whose hails from the Darod clan and who goes by the nickname “Farmajo”, won after incumbent president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud admitted defeat in a second round of voting by lawmakers.

Fears of attacks by extremist group al-Shabab limited the election to the lawmakers instead of the population at large. Members of the upper and lower houses of the legislature voted at a heavily guarded former air force base in the capital, Mogadishu, while a security lockdown closed the international airport.

Civilians took to the streets and soldiers fired celebratory gunfire in the capital Mogadishu which had been near-deserted for two days with roads and schools closed and residents urged to stay indoors for fear of a strike on the capital by Shabaab militants, geeskaafrika reported.

Chicago Tribune also reported that, Mohamud held a slight lead over Farmajo, 88 votes to 72, after the first round of 21 candidates, but Farmajo held a clear lead after the second round among the three candidates remaining.

Farmajo after taking the oath to office stressed that his victory represents the interest of the Somali people; adding that, “this victory belongs to Somali people, and this is the beginning of the era of the unity, the democracy of Somalia and the beginning of the fight against corruption”.

Farmajo, who holds degrees from the State University of New York in Buffalo, was prime minister for eight months before leaving the post in 2011. He had lived in the United States since 1985, when he was sent there with Somalia’s foreign affairs ministry.