[Peace-discuss] Somali crisis 'worse than Darfur'

[C. G. Estabrook]

[And why do we hear a great deal about Darfur and not about Somalia? (The
following is from the BBC.) Because the villain in re Darfur is an official
hate-object of the US (and the Israel lobby), while the villain in re Somalia is
the US, which overthrew Somalia's popular government and caused the crisis. --CGE]

	Somali crisis 'worse than Darfur'
	By Adam Mynott
	BBC News, Nairobi

The number of people in Somalia in need of emergency food aid is likely to rise
to about 3.5m in the coming months, the United Nations has warned.

Mark Bowden, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for the region, says the food
crisis is dramatically worsening.

Somalia faces a worse situation than Darfur, Mr Bowden says.

Contributing to the crisis are fighting between rival militias, successive
droughts, sharply rising food prices and a collapse of the Somali currency.

Mr Bowden says that during the course of the next three months the number of
people needing emergency food relief will climb by about one million from the
current 2.5m.

Aid agencies trying to get food into Somalia face extreme difficulties.

The task is made more difficult because fighting and violence has displaced a
million Somalis from their homes.

Mark Bowden says Somalia has become one of the world's most challenging
humanitarian crises.

He fears that there is now a sense of fatalism about what is happening to the
country.

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