NAIROBI: The UN’s humanitarian chief warned on Monday that drought-ravaged Somalia was on the brink of famine and time was running out to save lives.
“Famine is at the door and we are receiving a final warning,” Martin Griffiths, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told a press conference in Mogadishu.
“We are in the last moment of the 11th hour to save lives,” he declared.
An upcoming food and nutrition report on Somalia has concrete evidence that famine will strike two regions between October and December, Griffiths said.
“I’ve been shocked to my core these past few days at the level of pain and suffering we see so many Somalis enduring,” said Griffiths, who began a visit to the country on Thursday.
Somalia and its neighbors in the Horn of Africa including Ethiopia and Kenya are in the grip of the worst drought in more than 40 years following four failed rainy seasons that have wiped out livestock and crops.
Humanitarian agencies have been ringing alarm bells for months.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) last month said the number of people at risk of starvation across the region had increased to 22 million.
In Somalia alone, the number of people facing crisis hunger levels is 7.8 million, or about half the population, while around a million have fled their homes on a desperate quest for food and water, UN agencies say.
In 2011, famine in parts of Somalia, one of the poorest countries on the planet, cost the lives of 260,000 people, more than half of them children under the age of six.
Griffiths described scenes of heart-rending suffering during his visit to Baidoa, one of the two areas at risk of famine, saying he saw “children so malnourished they could barely speak” or cry.
The conflict-wracked country is considered one of the most vulnerable to climate change but is particularly ill-equipped to cope with the crisis.
A deadly insurgency by the radical Islamist Al-Shabab group against the fragile federal government is limiting humanitarian access to many areas.
A long-running political crisis also diverted attention away from the drought, but new President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud used his inauguration speech in June to appeal for international help to stave off looming disaster.
In recent years, increasingly extreme droughts and floods have added to the devastation caused by a locust invasion and the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Somalia is facing unprecedented levels of drought which have particularly hit rural communities, alongside other impacts like conflict, Covid-19, macroeconomic challenges, and a recent desert locust upsurge,” the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement on Friday.
It said people’s means to produce food and earn income were “stretched beyond breaking point.”
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said the Horn was likely facing a fifth straight failed rainy season over the months of October to December.
At the start of this year, the WFP had put the number at 13 million, and appealed for donors to open their wallets at a time of great need.
Funds were initially slow in coming, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine among other crises drawing attention from the disaster in the Horn, humanitarian workers said.
The war in Ukraine has also sent global food and fuel prices soaring, making aid delivery more expensive.
In June, British charity Save the Children had issued an alert that the international community was “sleepwalking toward another catastrophic famine” in Somalia.
OCHA has said the March-May 2022 rainy season was the driest on record in the last 70 years “making the 2020-2022 surpass the horrific droughts in both 2010-2011 and 2016-2017 in duration and severity.”
“An estimated 2.3 million girls and boys are at imminent risk of violence, exploitation, abuse, neglect, and death from severe acute malnutrition as result of food and nutrition crisis across Somalia,” it said in August.
In 2017, more than six million people in Somalia, more than half of them children, needed aid because of a prolonged drought across East Africa.
But early humanitarian action averted famine that year.
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee chaired by Griffiths brings together the heads of 18 organizations inside and outside the UN.
Famine ‘at the door’ in Somalia: UN humanitarian chief
https://arab.news/9gq88
Famine ‘at the door’ in Somalia: UN humanitarian chief
- Report on Somalia shows famine will strike two regions between October and December
- In Somalia, 7.8 million, or about half the population, face crisis hunger levels
Philippines to tighten guard at locations in South China Sea
- Philippine Coast Guard deploys ship to Sabina Shoal on the Spratly archipelago, where it accused China of building an artificial island
The Philippine Coast Guard said on Saturday it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal on the Spratly archipelago, where it accused China of building an artificial island, having documented what it said were piles of dead and crushed coral on the sandbars.
Jonathan Malaya, spokesperson of the National Security Council (NSC), said NSC chief Eduardo Ano had ordered a tighter guard at locations within Manila’s 200-nautical mile economic zone, as a long-standing diplomatic row with Beijing intensifies.
“No one will guard (these locations) except us. It is our responsibility under international law to guard (them) and ensure that the environment there would not be damaged and that there won’t be reclamation activities,” Malaya told a regular television program.
China claims almost all the South China Sea, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, and has carried out extensive land reclamation on some islands, building military facilities, causing concern in Washington and the region.
China’s foreign ministry on Monday dismissed Manila’s latest accusation as “groundless and pure rumor.”
“Recently, the Philippine side has repeatedly spread rumors, deliberately smeared China and attempted to mislead the international community, which is futile,” spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing.
He urged Manila to “return to the right track of properly settling maritime disputes through negotiation and consultation.”
Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said its presence at the Escoda shoal had deterred China from doing small-scale reclamation, but that scientists would have to determine whether the piles of coral were natural or man-made.
He said the coast guard was committed to maintaining a presence at the shoal, just over 120 nautical miles from the Philippine province of Palawan.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea, a vital waterway, had no basis under international law, a decision that China rejects.
The Sabina Shoal, known locally as Escoda, is the rendezvous point for vessels resupplying Filipino troops stationed on a grounded warship at the Second Thomas Shoal, where Manila and China have had frequent run-ins.
Ano has called for Chinese diplomats to be expelled over the alleged leak of a phone conversation with a Filipino admiral about the maritime dispute.
On Monday, the Philippine foreign ministry said it would look into reports of “illegal and unlawful activities” by diplomatic officials, but did not name China.
3 men charged in the UK with assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service
- The men will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court charged under the National Security Act
LONDON: Three men have been charged with allegedly assisting Hong Kong intelligence services and with foreign interference, London’s Metropolitan Police said Monday.
The men will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court charged under the National Security Act.
Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 38, Matthew Trickett, 37, and Chung Biu Yuen, 63, have each been charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service.
“While these offenses are concerning, I want to reassure the public that we do not believe there to be any wider threat to them,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, Head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.
“This investigation remains ongoing, but now that charges have been brought, I urge people not to speculate or comment further in relation to this case.”
Hong Kong’s security bureau, Hong Kong police and the office of China’s foreign ministry in Hong Kong did immediately respond to requests for comment.
Floods kill 43 in Indonesia’s West Sumatra, 15 missing
- Torrential rain on Saturday evening triggered flash floods, landslides, and cold lava flow in three districts in West Sumatra province
- Around 400 personnel, including rescuers, police, and military, were deployed to search for the missing people on Monday
TANAH DATAR: Flash floods and mud slides in Indonesia’s West Sumatra province killed at least 43 people over the weekend while a search for 15 missing people continued, authorities said on Monday.
Torrential rain on Saturday evening triggered flash floods, landslides, and cold lava flow — a mud-like mixture of volcanic ash, rock debris and water — in three districts in West Sumatra province, Abdul Malik, chief of the provincial rescue team, said.
The cold lava flow, known in Indonesia as a lahar, came from Mount Marapi, one of Sumatra’s most active volcanoes.
In December, more than 20 people were killed after Marapi erupted. A series of eruptions has followed since.
“The heavy rain swept materials such as ash and large rocks from the Marapi volcano,” said Abdul Malik, who later added in a statement that 43 people had died and 15 remained missing.
“Cold lava flow and flash floods have always been threats to us recently. But the problem is, it always happens late at night until dawn,” he said.
Abdul said around 400 personnel, including rescuers, police, and military, were deployed to search for the missing people on Monday, helped by at least eight excavators and drones.
The national disaster and management agency BNPB said in a statement almost 200 houses were damaged and 72 hectares (178 acres) of lands, including rice fields, were affected. At least 159 people from Agam district were evacuated to nearby schools.
Footage shared by BNPB showed roads and rice fields covered by mud. Video also showed the wreckage of damaged homes and buildings, while the floods brought logs and large rocks into settlements.
Eko Widodo, a 43-year-old survivor, said: “The flooding was sudden and the river became blocked which resulted in the flow of water everywhere and it was out of control.”
German court backs intelligence agency’s designation of far-right party as suspected extremist case
- The party could still seek to appeal the verdict at a federal court
BERLIN: Germany’s domestic intelligence agency was justified in designating the far-right Alternative for Germany as a suspected case of extremism, a court ruled Monday, rejecting an appeal from the opposition party.
The administrative court in Muenster ruled in favor of the BfV intelligence agency, upholding a 2022 decision by a lower court in Cologne, German news agency dpa reported. Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has rejected the designation strongly.
The party could still seek to appeal the verdict at a federal court.
AfD was formed in 2013 and has moved steadily to the right over the years. Its platform initially centered on opposition to bailouts for struggling eurozone members, but its vehement opposition to then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow in large numbers of refugees and other migrants in 2015 established the party as a significant political force.
AfD has been polling strongly in Germany in recent months as discontent is high with center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition government.
However, its support declined somewhat following a media report in January that extremists met to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship, and that some figures from the party attended. The report triggered mass protests in the country against the rise of the far-right.
Two Americans, one Russian citizen among 20 detained in Georgia, Russia’s TASS reports
- 20 people detained at protests in Tbilisi while Georgian lawmakers were debating a “foreign agents” bill
Tbilisi: Some 1,000 protesters stood firm outside parliament in Georgia on Monday, vowing not to back down in their fight against a Russia-styled “foreign agent” bill, a day before it’s due to be adopted.
Protests have gripped the small Caucasus nation for weeks over the bill, which critics say will erode democracy and derail the ex-Soviet republic’s long-held ambition of joining the European Union.
Critics say the measure, which resembles one Russia has used to crack down on dissent, will steer Tbilisi back under Moscow’s influence.
The ruling Georgian Dream party has portrayed it as necessary for Georgia’s sovereignty, saying it will boost transparency of civil groups’ funding.
The bill is due to go for a third and final reading in parliament on Tuesday.
On Monday, it passed a committee vote, a final step before it goes for a vote in parliament.
The bill targets NGOs that receive foreign funding, with Georgian Dream’s billionaire backer Bidzina Ivanishvili accusing them of working on foreign orders and plotting a revolution.
Part of Tbilisi’s main Rustaveli Avenue was closed off around parliament on Monday.
Hundreds of riot police officers lined a street behind parliament, and some scuffles broke out between them and protesters.
Authorities a day earlier warned that they would arrest people who blocked parliament, but thousands defied the warning and came to the parliament’s gates anyway.
“We are planning to stay here for as long as it takes,” 22-year-old Mariam Kalandadze told AFP.
“This law means not joining Europe,” she said, adding that “this is something that I have wanted my whole life.”
