If U.S. stands by, millions starve
The United Nations has rigorous and rarely met criteria for declaring a famine: 1 in 5 households in an affected area must be severely short of food; more than 30 percent of the population must be malnourished; and at least two starvation-related deaths must occur per day for every 10,000 members of the population. U.N. authorities did not declare a famine zone anywhere in the world after 2011 — until this year. Now there is one in South Sudan, and soon there may be three more — in northern Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen. As many as 20 million people may face starvation.
This extraordinary emergency is attracting remarkably little attention, and alarmingly paltry funding. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says $4.4 billion is needed by July to deliver food, water and medicine to afflicted areas, but only 10 percent of that sum has been raised. If Congress allows the drastic cuts in U.S. foreign aid proposed by the Trump administration, the funds necessary to prevent mass starvation almost certainly will not materialize. Last year, the United States provided almost a quarter of the World Food Program’s budget, or about $2 billion.
The food shortage in Somalia, the site of the last U.N. famine declaration six years ago, is in part the result of a drought affecting much of East Africa. Tragically, however, the emergency in the other three countries is entirely man-made. In South Sudan, government forces are impeding the delivery of food to two areas held