Somalia’s famine over but danger remains

NAIROBI, KENYA— The United Nations officially declared an end Friday to the famine that struck parts of Somalia last year, but it warned the country still faced dire conditions and could see a reversal.

“Long-awaited rains, coupled with substantial agricultural inputs and the humanitarian response deployed in the last six months, are the main reasons for this improvement,” said Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the UN’S Food and Agriculture Organization.

The UN estimates that a drought, combined with ongoing conflict and food shortages, claimed tens of thousands of lives in 2011. Southern Somalia still has one of the highest mortality rates in the world, it said.

“Millions of people still need food, clean water, shelter and other assistance to survive and the situation is expected to deteriorate in May,” warned the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

According to a report by the FAO and the United States Agency for International Development, the number of people in need of emergency humanitarian assistance has fallen from four million last year to 2.34 million, or 31 per cent of the Somali population.

Complicating the situation was Islamist terrorist group Al Shabab, which banned international relief organizations, forcing many Somalis in drought-ravaged areas to cross the border to Kenya and Ethiopia in search of aid.

The UN cautioned that aid agencies still faced heavy restrictions in Somalia. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the last international aid group able to operate freely across the country, was banned this week by Al Shabab.