Sir, – President Michael D Higgins’s opinion piece, highlighting the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa where an estimated half a million people are currently at risk of famine, calls on the international community to act now and act fast to save lives (“We cannot let famine in the Horn of Africa slip from our agenda”, Opinion & Analysis, June 27th).
As a result of climate change, conflict, Covid and the impact of Ukraine’s crisis, 23 million people across Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and South Sudan are already in desperate need of humanitarian support and are only just coping. Many households have lost their livestock to drought. The most vulnerable have been forced to reduce the amount of food they eat each day, as a fourth failed rainy season and the crisis in Ukraine have led to shortages of food and highly inflated prices.
At Concern’s nutrition clinics, we are seeing a significant increase in the number of children under five requiring emergency treatment but there simply aren’t enough resources to meet the needs, particularly in remote areas.
As part of its emergency response to the drought, Concern Worldwide has reached 2.5 million people with a range of assistance including over 100,000 children through nutrition interventions. We have scaled up our operations to reach an additional 1.5 million people since April. Our focus has been on providing cash support for families (to enable them to buy essentials such as water and food) and protecting key services such as health and nutrition services. This sadly is not enough.
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The UN estimates that it will cost $4.4 billion to provide the necessary humanitarian support in the region up until August. To date the international response by donors to appeals has fallen far short of this target.
As President Higgins succinctly puts it, we have the capacity to anticipate and prevent regional and global famines, giving meaning to the words “never again”. The transformation we need is possible and overdue. The time to act is now. – Yours, etc,
DOMINIC MacSORLEY,
CEO,
Concern Worldwide,
Dublin 2.