This famine hasn't happened overnight, but it has been reduced to a
footnote in the media's eyes by more sensational events
Paddy Ashdown
Thursday July 21 2011
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/20/somalia-childrens-famine-media
The problem when a child is dying from starvation is that they can't
wait. They can't put their hunger on pause until the glare of the
media decides to turn its spotlight on them and help spread the word
that children are dying. Instead, they will slowly starve to death.
This is exactly what is happening to nearly 2 million children in
Somalia right now [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/jul/14/
somalia-drought-in-pictures" title="Guardian: Drought crisis in
Somalia - in pictures]. Nearly half of these children are already on
the critical list, inching further away from life as every hour slips
by. By the time you read this, it may already be too late for some.
In today's newspapers - from front to back - I was hoping to see the
media use their power and influence to tell this story. I hoped to see
headlines shouting that millions of women and children in Somalia, and
across the entire Horn of Africa, are struggling for survival and need
the British public to help.
But I didn't. Instead, my eyes were blurred with articles of shaving
foam and hacking scandals, as talk about the dire need for nutritional
supplies for children who need their lives saved slipped into the
footnotes.
And now, the situation has reached crisis point. This morning the UN
officially declared that famine exists in Somalia [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/jul/20/un-declares-famine-somalia"
title="Guardian: UN declares famine in Somalia] and that the lives of
nearly half of the Somali population - 3.7 million people - are now in
crisis.
At Unicef, which is the UN's children's agency, they don't use the
word famine lightly. They are guided by strict criteria that means it
can only be declared when at least three of eight prerequisites are
reached. These are acute malnutrition rates among children must exceed
30%; more than two people per 10,000 die daily; and food access falls
far below 2,100 kilocalories of food every day.
In those most severely affected regions of Somalia ? Bakool and Lower
Shabelle ? acute malnutrition due to poor diets or inadequate food is
now exceeding 50% and Unicef is recording at least six per 10,000
children dying daily. When one does the maths, this could translate
into more than 12 children dying every hour should the situation
worsen. Three other regions in the south will have a famine in next
one to two months they warn.
I've been to Ethiopia with Unicef last year into some of the same
regions that are today the focus of the wider Horn of Africa appeal.
The famine, the first in 20 years, is due to a number of factors such
as poverty, inadequate rainfall and conflict.
This famine didn't happen suddenly. It has been slowly evolving but
under reported. Unicef, along with the UN, has been warning since
January of a pending crisis and statements have been issued. 2011 has
been a year filled with natural disasters and social upheaval in north
Africa that have all been competing for news attention. Since drought
is a slow-onset disaster, it is often very difficult to get the type
of attention and response that is needed to raise the funds to prevent
that disaster. In addition, issues of access and conflict have made
the situation even more complicated.
The media also have a major role in the response to disasters. As
former BBC producer Suzanne Franks pointedly wrote in the British
Journalism Review [http://bjr.sagepub.com/content/19/3/27.abstract"
title="British Journalism Review: Getting into bed with charity]:
"Disasters - natural or man-made - exist only when they are covered by
the media. Plenty of terrible things happen that remain unreported.
Most disasters are known about only by those directly affected. And
the crises that do get media attention are not necessarily those that
kill or harm the most victims."
Being a child in Somalia is already tough and dangerous. If you
survive to one, you may not survive beyond five; if you live beyond
five, you most probably won't go to school and you most probably won't
have many choices other than being recruited into an armed faction.
Now with the famine, life is even worse. That is why Unicef - which
has been working in Somalia since 1972 - rightly calls this a
"children's famine".
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2011
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