Published by Mail Online on 1 August 2011. By Brian Carroll.
The Kenyan national newspaper, Daily Nation, summed it up in a lead editorial this week calling for ministerial resignations: ‘This tendency to attribute every misfortune to nature will be our downfall. We are not condemned by acts of God, but by gross mismanagement.’
The fleeing citizens of Somalia don’t even have a government to blame. Since 1991, when the first Somali refugees fled civil war and came to Dadaab, those who remained have been doomed to a dystopian nightmare, trapped between murderous militia on one side, and the onslaught of nature on the other.
A Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has been in place since 2006, but it scarcely controls a few neighbourhoods in the capital Mogadishu, a city now classified by the United Nations as the most dangerous on earth.
Somalia is the international community’s greatest failure. Experts report that a UN force of 22,500 soldiers would be required to suppress Al-Shabaab, and keep peace. Because of the United States’ €9 trillion debt and commitments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, there is no international will to invade Somalia.
Instead the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) needs €700million before December to stop deaths like Osman’s, after seven months of dry, harsh and unforgiving days.
How to donate: The Disasters Emergency Committee is an umbrella organisation for a number of leading British charities.
They include: ActionAid, Age UK, British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Plan UK, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.
To make a donation call 0370 60 60 900 or text ‘CRISIS’ to 70000 to give £5. Alternatively, send a donation to PO Box 999, London, EC3A 3AA , visit www.dec.org.uk. or go to www.rescue-uk.org
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