May-23-12
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Humanitarian assistance in Somalia remains critical

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Following the United Nations announcement that the crisis in Somalia is no longer classified as a famine, Action Against Hunger’s Director of Operations, Jens Oppermann, issues this response:

“Whilst Action Against Hunger welcomes the news that Somalia is no longer officially classified as experiencing famine, we strongly urge the need for caution. The country is still in an extremely fragile state with at least 2.34 million people in need of life saving assistance. The ongoing food crisis remains one of the most severe emergencies existing in the world today. We believe that the situation remains serious. The humanitarian community must remain committed in answering to the needs of the population and efforts must be maintained to avoid any deterioration. We cannot loose what has been achieved so far.

“As a humanitarian organisation with 20 years of experience in Somalia, we know that at this time, there is very little information available in some of the worst affected areas of the country, such as Bakool, following the expulsion of major aid organisations, including ourselves. This is a major concern.

“In order to prevent the situation from deteriorating again, it is crucial that the underlying causes of the continuing crisis are addressed and we continue to build the resilience of communities by implementing programmes that improve the food security of the population.

“We urge donors to maintain their efforts, as a further reduction in humanitarian aid to Somalia would be disastrous.  Whilst a good rainy season has certainly lowered the impact of the crisis for some communities, hundreds of thousands of families remain in desperate need. What happens if the next rainy season fails? We need to very carefully monitor both the situation and the capacities of organisations to assist people in the worst affected regions.

“Somalia has clearly shown the importance of responding to crises quickly, such as we are now witnessing with the Sahel, which could see one million children suffering from severe acute malnutrition by Spring. International donors and the humanitarian community have learned the lessons from Somalia and this time round are responding much more quickly to support life-saving programmes as well as programmes that address the underlying causes of malnutrition. Action Against Hunger is already strengthening its teams and resources on the ground to mitigate the impact of the crisis across Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

“We must not allow ourselves to forget Somalia and its neighbouring countries of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti, which are all still experiencing the devastating crisis. Although this announcement is encouraging in the fact that our humanitarian efforts have had some success, it must not allow us to weaken our ongoing efforts to assist a nation living on the edge.” 

Source: Reuters AlertNet

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