ZUMA Press Launches this week: zReportage: “Somalia On The Brink” Photography by @ Maciej Moskwa/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press.

Posted by ZUMAPRESS.com on May 19, 2017
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Somalia On The Brink

The current drought in Somalia will very likely become a famine – this year. More than 2 million people are facing starvation in the Horn of Africa nation that is suffering the effects of repeated rain failures and decades of conflict, according to the United Nations. A pre-famine alert was issued earlier this year, a move that U.N. officials credit with helping to avert a repeat of the 2011 famine. More than half the country, some 6.7 million Somalis still require aid after drought withered crops, killed livestock and dried up waterholes, according to the U.N. And almost 1.4 million children will risk acute malnutrition, according to UNICEF. After three extremely dry ‘rainy’ seasons, the effect has been catastrophic. 60 percent of Somalis depend on farming for survival, but as the dry landscape has caused many small farmers to lose their livestock and in turn their livelihood. While emergency workers focus on safe drinking water and food, the country is fighting its worst cholera epidemic in five years so far over 600 people have died from the disease. It will be the 3rd famine to hit Somalia in 25 years, a rate of starvation that is unmatched on Earth.