More than 20 million people in four countries will be in danger of starvation in the coming months. The United Nations says the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second world war.
But the reaction to an emergency situation — neither from governments nor from the citizens. Monday in the office for the coordination of humanitarian Affairs, the UN reported that it collected only 43% of 6.27 billion dollars needed to prevent this year of hunger in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria. A survey by the International rescue Committee showed that 85% of Americans are largely unaware of food shortages.
The Committee calls it “the least publicized, but most important issue of our time.” UN data, U.S. government and private groups confirm this statement.
According to the U.S. Agency for international development, more than half the population of Somalia and South Sudan require emergency food aid. Civil war in these countries combined with poor spring rains led to a sharp reduction of food reserves.
In Nigeria under threat are about 5 million people in the North-Eastern provinces, where he actively operates a terrorist group “Boko Haram”.
The most shocking reports come from Yemen, where according to the UN, humanitarian assistance need a staggering 20 million people. In addition to the millions of people who lack food, since the end of April from a cholera epidemic affected more than 330 thousand people.
Almost every hour a person dies. Donors have provided less than 40 percent of support to Yemen to prevent hunger, and recently officials were forced to take some of that money to combat cholera.
In all four countries, children are subjected to disproportionate impact: according to aid groups, up to 1.4 million children with severe malnutrition could die in the next few months, if not additional resources.
The United States is relatively generously responded to the calls of UN. Mainly this is due to the Congress, which was introduced in the budget this year, another 990 million US dollars in food aid to four countries.
Staff the helpdesk to complain that the administration trump sluggish distributes funds, but this month, USAID announced an additional 630 million dollars. After that, total aid reached US $ 1.9 billion.
Unfortunately, US policy in the sphere of security only exacerbates the crisis, which sent humanitarian aid.
In Yemen, the Pentagon continues to support unjustified military intervention led by Saudi Arabia, which blocks the import of food and medicines.
And although society is not yet fully aware of the scale of the problem, one of the encouraging developments was the formation of an unprecedented Alliance, consisting of eight major private organizations in the United States for assistance.
Global coalition for emergency situations on Monday began a two-week campaign to raise funds. The campaign attracted the support of several American corporations, including Blackrock, PepsiCo and Google, the funds will be equally distributed between the groups and used to assist in four countries and in six neighboring regions.
The group rightly drew attention to the fact that further delay in help — whether it be due to lack of donations or bureaucratic slowness in their distribution, will directly lead to the deaths can still be avoided. “The crisis, says Carolyn miles, Executive Director of the organization Save the Children (save the children), is really close to the highest point”.
