The Guardian reports that famine is looming in four different countries, Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia. The capitalist system is once again unable to cope.
Gareth Owen, humanitarian director of Save the Children, said: “The potential this year is we may have four famines looming, which is a truly scary thought and will stretch our resources. We are at a critical moment...we are facing a major crisis that we have not seen before.”
In Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, there are 12 million people affected by food insecurity. These three countries together look as bad as Somalia in 2011. If you add South Sudan on top of that, with that conflict, and Nigeria, you have millions more. And Yemen has 18 million people.
Oxfam’s policy adviser, Debbie Hillier, described the humanitarian system as “medieval”, likening the appeal procedure to someone whose house was burning down having to raise money to pay the fire brigade to extinguish it.
Saleh Saaed, the head of the Disasters Emergency Committee, an organisation that coordinates disaster response on behalf of 13 British charities, explained, “As a global community we haven’t been able to tackle this issue of how do you address famine. How do you get the resources before it’s too late?”
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