UN: Aid staves off Somalia famine

GBNEWS24DESK//

Humanitarian aid and support from local communities have helped avert a dreaded famine declaration in Somalia this year, but the situation remains “catastrophic,” the UN said yesterday. The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said the latest assessment found that, technically, Somalia was not yet in the grip of full-blown famine. But, he warned, that “does not mean that people are not experiencing catastrophic food shortages”. Somalia has been wracked by decades of civil war, political violence and an Islamist insurgency. Millions of people are at risk of starvation across the wider Horn of Africa, in the grip of the worst drought in four decades after five consecutive failed rainy seasons wiped out livestock and crops.