by Jessica Knorr

Created on: August 16, 2011

Since the early 1990’s Somalia has been a country of turmoil and political unrest. The Islamist insurgent group Al Shabab has been battling The Transitional Federal Government for control of Somalia for years. They are now blocking starving people from fleeing the country and receiving much needed aid. The Shabab have begun setting up cantonment camps where it is imprisoning displaced people that were trying to escape Shabab territory. 

The group is widely blamed for causing a famine in Somalia by forcing out Western aid organizations, depriving the Somali people of desperately needed food, water and vaccines. Tens of thousands have already perished and over 500,000 children are facing the same fate as they stand on the brink of starvation.

Day after day the suffering continues as emaciated parents and children stagger into Banadir Hospital looking for relief. People lie dying because of lack of equipment and medicine. With very few families having any money for medicine and the lack of supplies at the hospital, the situation continues to get even worse leaving little hope for the people.

Aid groups are desperately trying to increase their operations and The United Nations has begun airlifting food supplies but fear the roads that lie ahead.  One of Africa’s worst humanitarian disasters has struck in one of the most inaccessible countries. Somalia has remained lawless for decades and the southern half of the country is under the control of the Shabab. Somalia is considered to be more dangerous than Haiti or even Iraq and aid groups struggle to get aid to the people that need it most by constant resistance and inaccessibility to the areas hardest hit. The Shabab who have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda have tried to rid their areas of anything Western, including Western aid and medicine during a time of famine. This leaves very few choices for millions of starving Somalis. They can try to flee to neighboring countries like Kenya and Ethiopia but are faced with Shabab opposition and are threatened with violence and even death if they try to leave. The only way out for the people is to sneak away at night to avoid capture or continue to face a grueling famine and certain death. 

It is a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions. The famine is spreading out across the country like a plague. The people are lost in a perilous struggle between life and death and political turmoil. The magnitude of suffering could shift the political landscape as the transitional Federal Government tries to assert itself and fight back against the Shabab, but is it a little too little, a little too late? If the Transitional Federal Government is able to provide services to its people and fight back against the Shabab it may be able to gain some of the people’s confidence and support but if a lot of people die as a result of this famine, the blame will ultimately be on the government’s shoulders.

Putting aside all of the political aspects of Somalia’s unrest, the real tragedy are that millions of people stand alone and are virtually unsupported by the outside world. The only losers in this battle are the Somali people and their continued suffering for the worlds most needed necessity of food and water. In this day and age it is simply a tragedy that should not exist.     

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