Editorials

The Irish Times view on the east Africa hunger crisis: the world must widen its gaze

With an estimated 750,000 people at immediate risk of starvation or death, the rich world can no longer look away

Workers assess a child for malnutrition in Doolow, Somalia last month. The worst drought in four decades, and a sharp rise in food prices caused by the war in Ukraine, have left almost half of Somalia’s people facing acute food shortages. Photograph: Malin Fezehai/The New York Times
Workers assess a child for malnutrition in Doolow, Somalia last month. The worst drought in four decades, and a sharp rise in food prices caused by the war in Ukraine, have left almost half of Somalia’s people facing acute food shortages. Photograph: Malin Fezehai/The New York Times
Thu Jun 16 2022 - 19:00

Every 48 seconds, someone is likely to be dying of hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, according to recent estimates.

In these drought-hit countries, more than 23 million people are experiencing extreme hunger, and the United Nations warns that a staggering 750,000 people across five east African states are at immediate risk of starvation or death. In Somalia, staff from Unicef have reported meeting parents who had to bury the bodies of their emaciated children by the roadside as they trekked hundreds of kilometres to seek medical help.

A grave humanitarian emergency is developing before our eyes, in other words, and yet it seems as if the world’s eyes are averted. The region has been hit by a confluence of forces, including climate change, violent conflict and global food shortages caused by the war in Ukraine.

The Horn of Africa has just had its fourth successive dry rainy season. The March-May rainy season was the driest on record, resulting in damaged crops and the death of millions of livestock while exhausting the coping mechanisms of communities.

READ MORE

There are fears that the second rainy season, from October to December, will also fail, meaning this exceptionally dry period could last for the rest of the year. That is because of an annual oscillation in sea-surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean, which causes either long droughts or heavy rain in east Africa.

The phenomenon, known as the Indian Ocean Dipole, is expected to be particularly strong – with especially devastating results – this year. In this, one of the poorest parts of the world and one of the lowest contributors to global carbon emissions, the climate crisis is a current reality, not an abstract concern.

The situation could be worse than in 2011, when famine claimed the lives of 250,000 people, mainly children, in Somalia alone. That is partly because extreme weather has coincided this year with a shortfall in global food supplies. East Africa imports 90 per cent of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia, but the war has blocked supply lines and sent prices soaring. Rising oil and fertiliser prices have compounded the crisis.

In the short-term, the world must mobilise to avert starvation and death. Already 1.7 million children are in urgent need of treatment for acute malnutrition. That will worsen without rapid action. The UN says humanitarian funding of €4.2 billion is needed to save lives in the region and mitigate the catastrophic effects of the current crisis.

To date its appeals remain dramatically underfunded – a shameful situation that Irish humanitarian organisations have done well to highlight. Putting that right is a moral imperative. But it is essential also to invest in resilience-building measures to help communities in east Africa to resist ever more frequent droughts brought about by global warming.