Drought, war heighten threat of not one, but four, famines
BAIDOA, Somalia — The water in the village well began to disappear, turning cloudy, then red, then slime-green, but the villagers kept drinking it. It was all they had.
Now on a hot, flat, stony plateau outside Baidoa, thousands pack into destitute camps, many clutching their stomachs, some defecating in the open, others already dead from a cholera epidemic.
“Even if you can get food, there is no water,” said Sangabo Moalin, who held her head with a hand as thin as a leaf and spoke of her body “burning.”
Another famine is about to tighten its grip on Somalia.
And it’s not the only crisis that aid agencies are scrambling to address. For the first time since anyone can remember, there is a very real possibility of four famines — in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen — breaking out at once, endangering more than 20 million lives.
International aid officials say they are facing one of the biggest humanitarian disasters since World War II. And they are determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
One powerful lesson from the last famine in Somalia, six years ago, was that famines were not simply about food — they also were about water.
Once again, a lack of clean water and proper hygiene is setting off an outbreak of killer diseases in displaced-persons camps. So the race is on to dig more latrines, get clean water into the camps, and pass out more soap, more water-treatment tablets and more plastic buckets.
The famines are coming as a drought sweeps across Africa and several different wars seal off needy areas. U.N. officials say they need a huge infusion of cash to respond. So far, they are not just millions of dollars short, but billions.
At the same time, President Donald Trump is urging Congress to cut foreign aid and assistance to the U.N.
In northeastern Nigeria, thousands of displaced people have become sick from diseases spread by dirty water and poor hygiene as the battle grinds on between Islamist extremists and the Nigerian military.
In South Sudan, both rebel forces and government soldiers are intentionally blocking emergency food and hijacking food trucks, aid officials say. On Saturday, six aid workers were killed.
The U.N. has already declared parts of South Sudan a famine zone.
In Yemen, relentless aerial bombings by Saudi Arabia and a trade blockade have mutilated the economy, sending food prices spiraling and pushing hundreds of thousands of children to the brink of starvation.