Somali refugee crisis getting worse

[KingMJ]

Somalia generates the most refugees of any country in Africa, and third most of all countries in the world. It sits only behind Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the UNHCR Operation in Somalia.

Refugees are fleeing the country for a confluence of reasons. The northeastern African nation is experiencing massive and long-lasting famine and drought, which combined with lawlessness, gang warfare and anarchy, has forced millions of people from their homes.

"The collapse of the state... led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today, translating into unacceptable suffering of innocent civilians who see their basic human rights violated every day," according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Kenya receives the most displaced Somalis of any country. By June 2010, there were 325,600 refugees in Kenya, but that number is now exceeded by the population of the Dadaab refugee complex alone. Since the start of 2011, 61,000 new Somalis have gone to Kenya for safety.

Yemen and Ethiopia also accept a large burden of displaced persons. West of Somalia, Ethiopia has seen the arrivals of 55,000 refugees, and the UN's two large camps have reached full capacity. Ethiopia currently has a total of 130,000 Somali people. The United Nations has opened a new camp to accommodate future displaced persons.

In total, there are almost 2.5 million refugees living in neighboring countries or displaced within Somalia itself.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/173282/ ... famine.htm

[KingMJ]

2011 is unfortunately already a worse year than the last

[KingMJ]

Somali refugee crisis killing children

Throngs of Somali children are dying because of the harrowing journey with their families to reach refugee camps in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday.
Some of the children don't survive the exhausting trek and aid workers are learning of those deaths from families who tell their stories once they arrive at one of the overcrowded border camps that now host more than 382,000 people, agency officials said.

But agency officials said many of the children arrive so hungry and frail that even the emergency care and therapeutic feeding that they immediately receive isn't enough to revive them. The officials say they do not yet know exactly how many children are dying, but the crisis is taking on unimaginable proportions.

"It's so extreme," agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said. "Our people are saying they've never seen anything like it."

Fleming said 54,000 people fled Somalia in June - triple the number in May - and the refugee families include an unknown number of children under age 5 who are dying from hunger and exhaustion.
More than 135,000 Somalis so far have fled the unending violence in their country in a fast-escalating crisis that is being compounded by one of the worst droughts to hit East Africa in decades, Fleming said.

Her agency estimates a quarter of Somalia's 7.5 million population is now uprooted in their own country or living as a refugee abroad. In Dadaab camp in Kenya, for example, 1400 refugees a day are pouring in.
Some 9 million people need humanitarian assistance in the drought-hit countries of the Horn of Africa, which is experiencing one of the worst droughts since the early 1950s, according to the UN's humanitarian aid coordination office.

Child malnutrition rates have reached emergency levels of 15 percent in some areas, said the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which cited a lack of food as a major factor in the surge in people leaving Somalia in search of help.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/africa/524 ... g-children