The Horn of Africa, which includes Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya and Djibouti, is facing the worst humanitarian crisis since 1984, Peter Smerdon, a spokesman with the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) told The Media Line (TML).
It is a regional crisis, worsened by the conflicts in Ethiopia and Somalia, as well as by rising food and fuel prices, Smerdon said.
Due to little rain in the usually wet period from March to May an estimated 14.5 million people throughout the region are in need of assistance, according to the WFP.
One of the main problems for the region, as with Africa in general, is that poverty is so widespread and many of the continent’s inhabitants barely get by under normal circumstances. When they are hit by disasters such as drought or rising food prices they simply cannot make a living and need outside help.
“The human factor in Somalia is a very large part of the problem, specifically the conflict since 1991, but worse in the last couple of years,” said Smerdon.
For the last 17 years there has not been a functioning central government in Somalia as the country has been plagued by civil war between various clans and militias making distribution of aid risky and adding further strain to the population. During last couple of years, the fighting has been concentrated in the capital Mogadishu, where government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers have been battling fighters from the Islamic Courts Union.
The global rise in food and fuel costs has also hit Somalia and the prices of some basic food items have risen by 800 percent, leaving half of the country’s population of eight million in need of help, according to the WFP.
The difference in the human factor in clearly seen when looking at Somalia’s northern neighbor Djibouti, which has also been hit hard by the drought but the effects have been milder, due to a much more stable political climate. Much of that is because there is a large presence of American and French troops stationed in the strategically-located country.
In addition to the general rise in food cost around the world, the waters of the Horn of Africa have within the last couple of years seen a dramatic increase in piracy. Local gangs based along the lawless the eastern coast of Somalia have regularly been seizing ships carrying food supplies to the region, demanding ransoms or simply distributing the captured food to people belonging to their clan or militia.