Is Somalia's famine artificially engineered by NGOs and government?

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Over 7 million Somalis are facing famine something which has forced them to flee from the country to neighboring Kenya, where thousands of them are said to be struggling to get admission as refugees in the already crowded Dadaab refugee camp in the East African nation, which has been in existence for decades.

The Kenyan government had given ultimatums to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] to close the camp after it was blamed for being a breeding zone of Al-Shabaab terrorists, but since then, both parties have reached an agreeable solution to the predicaments.

There is no doubt that most parts of Somalia if not the entire country are facing severe drought due to a lack of rain for the last four years. So devastating has been the drought that the country has been surviving on donations made by well-wishers under the coordination of the UN Office of Coordination [OCHA].

Already, millions of dollars have been released by the UN, the United States, United Arab Emirates, the European Union [EU], and many countries which directly deal with government or trusted Non-Governmental Organizations [NGOs] which are tasked to come up with both preventive and mitigation measures.

But for the past few days, there have been no notable preventive measures with many wells and boreholes drying up due to corruption that is witnessed when sinking them. The substandard wells and boreholes are at times blown up by Al-Shabaab, further denying people water for their sustainability.

Also, there are no notable water harvesting techniques or structures that have been put in place because when it rains, most parts of the country are affected by severe floods. So devastating have been the floods that hundreds of people have been reported dead and thousands displaced from their homes.

Of discouraging is the fact that Somalia borders the 3,333 KM Indian-ocean coastline which remains underutilized despite millions of dollars pumped into the country to support a Blue Economy. If fully utilized, experts say, the economy of the country would significantly improve while incidents of people dying of hunger will be minimized.

A walk in the coastal city of Mogadishu exposes some of the worst problems small-scale business people particularly those selling fish are undergoing. One would easily see rotting Yellowfin-tuna with the fishermen lacking modern storage facilities which are provided for by the aid agencies and government.

On record, a number of NGOs claim they spend over $200 million on Somalia's fisheries ministry which has been renamed the Ministry of Fisheries and Blue Economy but nothing tangible can be shown for such colossal amounts of money to the country. There are no public golf storage facilities along major towns near the coastline of the country.

Recently, the UN Famine Prevention and Response Coordinator Reena Ghelani just returned from Baidoa, the epicenter of drought in Somalia. She met affected people and authorities, assessed ongoing responses, and highlighted the need for durable solutions to help mitigate climate shocks.

Devastatingly, there is a visible lack of support for small fishermen to find public storage. In most cases, the small fishermen face two problems; the foreign trawlers illegally fishing who lock them from accessing the fish abundant zones, and their catch rots when the market is not good.

The government has rarely shown commitment to supporting the fish industry in the country, further making it lose an opportunity of helping millions of starving people through plenty of fish along the coastline which can feed thousands of people without depletion any soon.

GAROWE ONLINE