UN urges "massive action" on famine Somali jihadists say doesn't exist

UN urges "massive action" on famine Somali jihadists say doesn't exist



If Somalia is starving, al-Shabaab's opposition within the country is also starving or fleeing. That certainly appears to be a factor in their calculations, as they have dismissed the declaration of famine as "sheer propaganda."

The article below focuses on the supply of aid. There is also the question of distribution. Al-Shabaab is undoubtedly attempting to blackmail aid agencies into allowing them a major (if not exclusive) role in distribution, giving the group the first choice of what they want from desperately needed food resources.

What is curiously lacking is much outrage in the Muslim world at this deliberate and needless loss of life among their brethren, as well as large-scale offers of aid that al-Shabaab would not dismiss as being from "Christian" organizations. After all, Saudi Arabia could certainly afford it. "UN urges 'massive' action on famine," from the Australian Associated Press, July 25:

The United Nations urged a "massive" effort to save millions of people in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa, as France said donor countries would meet in Nairobi this week to step up aid pledges.
"The catastrophic situation demands massive and urgent international aid," Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said at the start of emergency talks on the crisis his agency is hosting in Rome today.
"It is imperative to stop the famine," said Diouf, after the United Nations declared a famine in two insurgent-held areas of southern Somalia.
And the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) announced at the talks that it would begin an airlift of food aid into the Somali capital Mogadishu on Tuesday.
An estimated 3.7 million people in Somalia - around a third of the population - are on the brink of starvation and millions more in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have been struck by the worst drought in the region in 60 years.
Al-Shabaab is preventing aid from reaching up to 2.2 million Somalis.