A decision by extremists Islamist militants to ban food aid and international donors numb to a series of unfolding disasters made south-central Somalia the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
The first in-depth scientific study of famine deaths in Somalia in 2011 [released today] … estimates 133,000 children under age 5 died, with child death rates approaching 20 percent in some communities.
The story is from Fox News and leaves out a few things.
Aid organizations in Somalia say the U.N. dragged its feet in declaring a famine in Somalia,
because it didn’t want Islamic extremists, called al-Shabab, to confiscate the relief supplies. “It was a political decision and it did cost lives,” says Burns [a senior relief worker in Somalia].
Which would suggest that there was blame to go around. The Guardian noted in a 2011 headline:
Somalia famine relief effort hit harder by food aid delays than by rebels
victims of the famine in areas controlled by al-Shabab were cut off from aid. “Throughout the famine, they never received a dollar in cash or in kind in terms of famine relief,” Burns says.
I would seem that Mohammed’s warriors do indeed have rather a lot of emaciated corpses on their minuscule conscience.
[image via niketalk]