Somalia Food Aid
Another food crisis wracking the world. It's wide-spread, the consequences of food scarcity because of mismanagement, because of side-lining grains for the production of ethanol, because the emerging economies of the world are demanding their share of grain-fed cattle for the dinner table. And the less developed countries of the world are suffering because of incessant drought conditions, civil war, and food shortages.
The "Arab Spring" found its initial purpose in peoples' plight with food shortages and steeply rising prices for both food and energy. Peoples' disposable income being stretched beyond what they could sustain. Hungry people are not contented people. They complain, and often with good reason. The link between food shortages and the wish for a new social contract that might result in greater freedoms was born.
Even in a wealthy country like Israel with its booming economy and its stretching gulf between the wealthy and the over-taxed, over-strained middle class has been facing demands for change. The price of a common commodity, cottage cheese, began the popular protests; that and the scarcity of and high price of dwellings.
And in the Horn of Africa, malnutrition and starvation has taken the lives of thousands of children under the age of five. Women with their hungry and ill children have been undertaking long, arduous marches to refugee camps in Kenya where the UN and other NGOs and humanitarian groups have been desperately trying to feed and accommodate the refugees.
In Somalia, al-Shabaab saw fit to deny the presence of the UN's World Food Programme, preferring to ignore hungry and desperate nomadic Somalians who watched in despair as their goats and sheep succumbed to starvation, leaving them with nothing of value and nothing to consume. The United Nations continued to berate the world community for its laxity in responding to its pleas for support.
The extent of the famine in the Horn of Africa has become more wide-spread as the months have passed. The international community has responded, but nowhere near the millions required. What has been provided in aid for the starving has had problems reaching them. Somalians living in Mogadishu who are shopkeepers and stall-keepers, and the military itself have been looting UN aid provisions.
Thousands of sacks of stolen aid are to be seen for sale in markets beside the refugee camps full of the starving. These looted sacks of food are not to be given freely to the starving refugees, for the UN is no longer in command or possession of them; they are available for sale to those starving refugees who have no funds to pay for them.
The international community, apprised through The Associated Press of the corruption endemic in the country through government officials, the military, and the rebels taking possession of food aid for their own enrichment, have been understandably loathe to come to attention to provide the $2.4-billion demanded by the UN.
The UN has reluctantly been forced to admit that its humanitarian supply lines are "highly vulnerable to looting, attack and diversion by armed groups". Violations have been committed by Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, African Union peacekeeping forces and Somali militias. In other words they have been sacking food aid for the desperately starving.
How to penetrate the thicket of official and unofficial representatives holding themselves entitled to procure what they will, to benefit from international aid, in the interests of reaching the desperate, starving Somalis whom all have abandoned?
The "Arab Spring" found its initial purpose in peoples' plight with food shortages and steeply rising prices for both food and energy. Peoples' disposable income being stretched beyond what they could sustain. Hungry people are not contented people. They complain, and often with good reason. The link between food shortages and the wish for a new social contract that might result in greater freedoms was born.
Even in a wealthy country like Israel with its booming economy and its stretching gulf between the wealthy and the over-taxed, over-strained middle class has been facing demands for change. The price of a common commodity, cottage cheese, began the popular protests; that and the scarcity of and high price of dwellings.
And in the Horn of Africa, malnutrition and starvation has taken the lives of thousands of children under the age of five. Women with their hungry and ill children have been undertaking long, arduous marches to refugee camps in Kenya where the UN and other NGOs and humanitarian groups have been desperately trying to feed and accommodate the refugees.
In Somalia, al-Shabaab saw fit to deny the presence of the UN's World Food Programme, preferring to ignore hungry and desperate nomadic Somalians who watched in despair as their goats and sheep succumbed to starvation, leaving them with nothing of value and nothing to consume. The United Nations continued to berate the world community for its laxity in responding to its pleas for support.
The extent of the famine in the Horn of Africa has become more wide-spread as the months have passed. The international community has responded, but nowhere near the millions required. What has been provided in aid for the starving has had problems reaching them. Somalians living in Mogadishu who are shopkeepers and stall-keepers, and the military itself have been looting UN aid provisions.
Thousands of sacks of stolen aid are to be seen for sale in markets beside the refugee camps full of the starving. These looted sacks of food are not to be given freely to the starving refugees, for the UN is no longer in command or possession of them; they are available for sale to those starving refugees who have no funds to pay for them.
The international community, apprised through The Associated Press of the corruption endemic in the country through government officials, the military, and the rebels taking possession of food aid for their own enrichment, have been understandably loathe to come to attention to provide the $2.4-billion demanded by the UN.
The UN has reluctantly been forced to admit that its humanitarian supply lines are "highly vulnerable to looting, attack and diversion by armed groups". Violations have been committed by Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, African Union peacekeeping forces and Somali militias. In other words they have been sacking food aid for the desperately starving.
How to penetrate the thicket of official and unofficial representatives holding themselves entitled to procure what they will, to benefit from international aid, in the interests of reaching the desperate, starving Somalis whom all have abandoned?
Labels: Africa, Agriculture, Environment, Security, Society, Traditions
posted by Pieface | 7:50 PM
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