NAIROBI: The UN’s humanitarian chief warned on Monday that drought-ravaged Somalia was on the brink of famine and time was running out to save lives.
“Famine is at the door and we are receiving a final warning,” Martin Griffiths, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told a press conference in Mogadishu.
“We are in the last moment of the 11th hour to save lives,” he declared.
An upcoming food and nutrition report on Somalia has concrete evidence that famine will strike two regions between October and December, Griffiths said.
“I’ve been shocked to my core these past few days at the level of pain and suffering we see so many Somalis enduring,” said Griffiths, who began a visit to the country on Thursday.
Somalia and its neighbors in the Horn of Africa including Ethiopia and Kenya are in the grip of the worst drought in more than 40 years following four failed rainy seasons that have wiped out livestock and crops.
Humanitarian agencies have been ringing alarm bells for months.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) last month said the number of people at risk of starvation across the region had increased to 22 million.
In Somalia alone, the number of people facing crisis hunger levels is 7.8 million, or about half the population, while around a million have fled their homes on a desperate quest for food and water, UN agencies say.
In 2011, famine in parts of Somalia, one of the poorest countries on the planet, cost the lives of 260,000 people, more than half of them children under the age of six.
Griffiths described scenes of heart-rending suffering during his visit to Baidoa, one of the two areas at risk of famine, saying he saw “children so malnourished they could barely speak” or cry.
The conflict-wracked country is considered one of the most vulnerable to climate change but is particularly ill-equipped to cope with the crisis.
A deadly insurgency by the radical Islamist Al-Shabab group against the fragile federal government is limiting humanitarian access to many areas.
A long-running political crisis also diverted attention away from the drought, but new President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud used his inauguration speech in June to appeal for international help to stave off looming disaster.
In recent years, increasingly extreme droughts and floods have added to the devastation caused by a locust invasion and the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Somalia is facing unprecedented levels of drought which have particularly hit rural communities, alongside other impacts like conflict, Covid-19, macroeconomic challenges, and a recent desert locust upsurge,” the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement on Friday.
It said people’s means to produce food and earn income were “stretched beyond breaking point.”
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said the Horn was likely facing a fifth straight failed rainy season over the months of October to December.
At the start of this year, the WFP had put the number at 13 million, and appealed for donors to open their wallets at a time of great need.
Funds were initially slow in coming, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine among other crises drawing attention from the disaster in the Horn, humanitarian workers said.
The war in Ukraine has also sent global food and fuel prices soaring, making aid delivery more expensive.
In June, British charity Save the Children had issued an alert that the international community was “sleepwalking toward another catastrophic famine” in Somalia.
OCHA has said the March-May 2022 rainy season was the driest on record in the last 70 years “making the 2020-2022 surpass the horrific droughts in both 2010-2011 and 2016-2017 in duration and severity.”
“An estimated 2.3 million girls and boys are at imminent risk of violence, exploitation, abuse, neglect, and death from severe acute malnutrition as result of food and nutrition crisis across Somalia,” it said in August.
In 2017, more than six million people in Somalia, more than half of them children, needed aid because of a prolonged drought across East Africa.
But early humanitarian action averted famine that year.
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee chaired by Griffiths brings together the heads of 18 organizations inside and outside the UN.
Famine ‘at the door’ in Somalia: UN humanitarian chief
https://arab.news/9gq88
Famine ‘at the door’ in Somalia: UN humanitarian chief
- Report on Somalia shows famine will strike two regions between October and December
- In Somalia, 7.8 million, or about half the population, face crisis hunger levels
China’s President Xi to attend BRICS summit in Russia
During his visit, Xi will attend the leaders’ meeting, the expert leaders’ dialogues and other activities, and have in-depth exchanges with leaders on the current international situation, Mao Ning, a ministry spokesperson, said at a regular news conference.
China is ready to work with all parties to promote BRICS cooperation, to usher in a new era of unity and self-reliance in the Global South, and jointly promote peace and development in the world, Mao said.
Floods cause damage, power outages in southeast France after heavy rainfall
- France’s weather authority Meteo France placed six departments south of the city of Lyon on a red flood alert
France’s weather authority Meteo France placed six departments south of the city of Lyon on a red flood alert on Thursday. The alert was downgraded to ‘orange’ on Friday, indicating that water levels would come down again.
“At certain places in the Ardeche region, up to 700 milimeters of water has fallen in 48 hours. That’s more than a year’s rainfall in Paris, so it’s absolutely gigantic,” Agnes Pannier-Runacher, the environment minister, told BFM TV.
French news stations showed cars, traffic signs and cattle being swept away by the floods. The A47 highway close to Lyon was temporarily transformed into a giant stream of water.
The French interior ministry said Paris had dispatched 1,500 additional firefighters to the affected areas.
Biden to discuss Ukraine with allies on swansong Berlin trip
BERLIN: US President Joe Biden will seek on Friday to cement cooperation with key European partners on issues from the Ukraine war to conflict in the Middle East during a swift swansong trip to Berlin.
“We’re wheels down in Berlin,” Biden wrote in a post on X overnight. “Ready to greet old friends and strengthen our close alliance as we stand together for freedom and against tyranny around the world.”
Biden, who sought to improve ties with Europe after the 2017-2021 presidency of Donald Trump, will be greeted with military honors before receiving Germany’s highest order of merit from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The distinction honors the 81-year-old’s “contributions to both the German-American friendship and the transatlantic bond” in all the offices he has held over the last five decades, according to the German presidential office.
Biden’s overnight trip comes just weeks before the US presidential vote, during which Republican nominee Trump is seeking re-election in a dead heat race against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate.
Biden, who dropped out of the race in July in favor of Harris, is due before lunch to hold closed-door talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the late morning on security, trade and other economic issues.
Later British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron will jet into Berlin to join them for talks focused largely on how to end the fighting in Ukraine as Russian forces advance in the east and a bleak winter of power cuts looms.
“The key question is the nature of security guarantees and so that’s what we will talk about tomorrow,” Macron told reporters on Thursday.
US election looming
Next month’s US presidential election is adding to the sense of urgency about Ukraine given Trump has signaled he would be much more reluctant to continue to support Kyiv.
That Biden is paying what could be his last visit to Europe as president to Berlin is testament to the close working relationship he has with Scholz.
Biden built trust with Germany at the start of his term and looked the other way for a while on the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, designed to double the flow of Russian gas direct to Germany, said Sudha David-Wilp of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
That closer relationship enabled Washington to work closely with Berlin after Russia invaded Ukraine, with German spending on defense swiftly raised to meet the NATO target of 2 percent of GDP while Russian gas imports were slashed.
Berlin also played a critical role in a major prisoner swap in August between Russia and the West that saw the release of US journalist Evan Gershkovich and ex-US Marine Paul Whelan from Russian detention.
“It’s a thank-you tour but it’s also a message to say, ‘please stay the course on Ukraine no matter what happens’,” said David-Wilp.
Russia tests readiness of nuclear missile unit
- Russia has carried out a series of nuclear drills this year in what security analysts say are signals intended to deter the West from intervening more deeply in the war in Ukraine
MOSCOW: Russia is testing the combat readiness of a unit equipped with Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles in a region northwest of Moscow, news agencies quoted the defense ministry as saying on Friday.
The Yars, which can be deployed in silos or mounted on mobile launchers, has a range of up to 11,000km is capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads.
Russia has carried out a series of nuclear drills this year in what security analysts say are signals intended to deter the West from intervening more deeply in the war in Ukraine.
The latest one is taking place in the same week that NATO conducted its annual nuclear exercise and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled his “victory plan.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that Moscow had extended the list of scenarios that could prompt it to use nuclear weapons, effectively lowering the threshold for their use. Ukraine accused Moscow of nuclear blackmail.
In the latest test, a unit in the Tver region will practice moving Yars missiles in the field over distances of up to 100km under camouflage and protecting them against air attack and enemy sabotage groups, Interfax quoted the defense ministry as saying.
Russia previously conducted two rounds of exercises involving Yars missile units in July. It has also held three sets of drills this year to test preparations for the launch of tactical nuclear missiles, which have a shorter range and lower yield than intercontinental strategic rockets.
In the course of the war, Putin has issued frequent reminders that Russia has the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal, but he has insisted that it does not need to resort to nuclear weapons in order to achieve victory in Ukraine.
Search underway for American reportedly abducted in southern Philippine town
- If confirmed to be a case of kidnapping for ransom, it would be the latest reminder of the long-running security problems that have hounded the southern Philippines
MANILA: The Philippine police said Friday it has launched a search after gunmen reportedly abducted an American national, who was shot in the leg as he tried to resist before being spirited away from a southern Philippine coastal town by speedboat.
If confirmed to be a case of kidnapping for ransom, it would be the latest reminder of the long-running security problems that have hounded the southern Philippines, the homeland of a Muslim minority in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
Police in Sibuco town in the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte tried to pursue the suspected abductors and their victim, who they identified as Elliot Onil Eastman, 26, from Vermont, after the reported abduction on Thursday night.
“We confirm that there was a report of the alleged abduction of an American national,” the regional police said in a statement. “We want to assure the public, particularly the community of Sibuco, that we are doing everything in our power to secure the safe recovery of the victim.”
The police asked the public to immediately provide any information that could help an ongoing investigation of the reported abduction.
Two police reports seen by The Associated Press said that a resident of Sibuco, Abdulmali Hamsiran Jala, reported to police that four men in black clothing who were armed with M16 rifles and introduced themselves as police officers forcibly took Eastman, who tried to escape.
One of the gunmen shot Eastman in the leg before dragging him into a speedboat then fled by sea further south toward the provinces of Basilan or Sulu, the police reports said.
Policemen chased but failed to find the gunmen and Eastman and alerted other police and Philippine marine units in the region, according to the reports.
Philippine authorities did not immediately provide background details of Eastman, but a person with a similar name has posted pictures and videos of himself on Facebook saying he had married a Muslim woman in Sibuco.
The US Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to questions about the reported abduction.
The southern Philippines has bountiful resources but has long been hamstrung by stark poverty and an array of insurgents and outlaws.
A 2014 peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest of several Muslim separatist groups, has considerably eased widespread fighting in the south. Relentless military offensives have weakened smaller armed groups like the notoriously violent Abu Sayyaf group over the years, considerably reducing kidnappings, bombings and other attacks.
The Abu Sayyaf group, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the Philippines, is an offshoot of decades-long Muslim separatist unrest in the south and carried out mass kidnappings for ransom, beheadings and bombings more than two decades ago in the southern region.
They targeted American and other Western tourists and religious missionaries, most of whom were freed after ransoms were paid. A few were killed, including an American who was beheaded on the island province of Basilan and a US missionary who was killed while Philippine army forces were trying to rescue him and his wife in 2002 in a rainforest in Sirawai town near Sibuco.
The Philippines will hold mid-term elections next year for more than 18,000 local, national and congressional posts, mostly provincial mayors and governors. In the traditionally volatile south, crimes including kidnappings and extortion have traditionally spiked as rogue politicians try to raise funds to fuel their campaigns ahead of elections in the past but only a few and isolated incidents have been reported in recent years, according to authorities.
