Wednesday April 5, 2017
By Molly Thomas
By the time a famine is declared it is far too late for far too many people — so the time to act is now.
Recently displaced mother Sahra Muse, 32, comforts her malnourished child, Ibrahim Ali, 7, in their makeshift shelter at a camp in the Garasbaley area on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia on March 28. Drought-stricken families facing a hunger crisis are on the move, trying to reach international aid agencies that are unable to distribute food in areas under the control of al-Shabab, Somalia's homegrown Islamic extremist rebels affiliated with al-Qaida. (Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
Seeing goat and camel carcasses lying in a farmer’s field is an image that still haunts me. The only thing worse than the rancid smell is the realization that children are generally the same weight and stature of the dead animals. Drought has reared its ugly head in Somalia once again, and everywhere you look people are suffering.
Somalia is a country of 12 million people and half of the population is in urgent humanitarian need. That’s like having everyone in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba hungry at this very moment. I saw children so skinny and exhausted they could barely raise their eyes when you talked to them.
Much like the Prairies, northern Somalia is mostly farmland, with sheep and cattle farmers constantly on the move. But we travelled for hours throughout Somaliland and Puntland, and there was eerily few people or animals in sight. Greyed out, barren fields are nothing like the Saskatchewan I grew up in. Arid, broken soil tells a story that is sadly repeating itself.
People in Canada may remember the famine that impacted the Horn of Africa in 2011. It was the worst drought in more than half a century and experts say Somalia was the worst hit. More than 250,000 people lost their lives. What people may not know is that more than half of those people were dead before the word “famine” was even declared.
Famine is a tricky word. It’s really a final SOS from the international community with strict stipulations. Ultimately, national governments make the final call but often avoid it because of the stigma. Think about Ethiopia — the country suffered its catastrophic famine 30 years ago — yet people still associate it with malnourished children and infertile lands.
What’s worse is that Somalia is inopportunely competing for coverage and humanitarian attention. The UN has already declared famine in South Sudan while Yemen and northern Nigeria are dealing with devastating droughts. With 20 million people at risk of starvation, it’s the world’s largest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War.
It’s easy to think Canada and Somalia are worlds apart, yet you can barely walk through Rexdale or North York without hearing Somali; you can’t take in a Somalian field without thinking of Canadian farmers; and you can’t overlook the impressive fact that a Somalian refugee, Ahmed Husse, is now our minister of immigration. Our countries are interconnected.
So how can we help? The $119 million committed by the Canadian government to the four-affected areas is a start, but it barely makes a dent in the $4.4 billion dollar ask from the UN by July. In a time when the Trump administration is trying to slash funding to foreign aid, Canada has an opportunity to differentiate itself as a humanitarian leader.
Beyond government money, Canada can pledge to match private donations right away. It did so when famine was declared in 2011, but remember at that point, thousands had already died. We need to pursue this proactively.
And private donations matter. I’m encouraged by the social media campaigns of everyday Canadians asking their audiences to help. A group of crowd funders called the Love Army for Somalia managed to raise almost $2.5 million; they also convinced Turkish Airlines to fly 60 tons of food and food containers to Somalia. Might Canadian air companies also jump in?
The window of opportunity is now. The Red Cross says we have less than four months before millions could lose their lives. Are we willing to wait for the ‘F’ word to scare and guilt us into responding? If we do, those decaying animal bones will be the fingers and toes of children, and we can’t say we weren’t warned.