[gusunsuth]

Famine grips East Africa: photo
By Elizabeth Flock


An aid worker films the rotting carcass of a cow in Wajir near the Kenya-Somalia border on Saturday. (STR - REUTERS)
For months, aid agencies have been sounding the alarm about drought in the Horn of Africa. A week ago, the United Nations officially declared famine in Somalia. Officials are now warning that 800,000 children could die of malnutrition.

Some of the photos that have emerged from the crisis have been powerful. The one above — of an aid worker crouching in the dust of Wajir in Kenya in a nearly unsoiled suit and bright red shoes filming a rotting cow carcass — raises the question of whether the aid caravan has been too late to prevent Africa’s crisis.

The photo is also a reminder that the $500 used to purchase the iPad in the aid worker’s hand could feed 100 children for 50 days.

And it brings to mind the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken during the Sudan famine, which depicts a starving child crawling toward an United Nations food camp as a vulture stands watch behind him. The photographer who took that photo, Kevin Carter, committed suicide three months later over regret that he had not helped the child.

If you’d like to help, you can do so by texting “FOOD” to UNICEF (864233) to donate $10, enough to feed a child for 10 days. Or go to our full list to see other ways to help.

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The photo above doesn't really tell the story. I guess the Washington Post couldn't do it. It isn't easy to post these images from The Atlantic.

Famine in East Africa

With East Africa facing its worst drought in 60 years, affecting more than 11 million people, the United Nations has declared a famine in the region for the first time in a generation. Overcrowded refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia are receiving some 3,000 new refugees every day, as families flee from famine-stricken and war-torn areas. The meager food and water that used to support millions in the Horn of Africa is disappearing rapidly, and families strong enough to flee for survival must travel up to a hundred miles, often on foot, hoping to make it to a refugee center, seeking food and aid. Many do not survive the trip. Officials warn that 800,000 children could die of malnutrition across the East African nations of Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kenya. Aid agencies are frustrated by many crippling situations: the slow response of Western governments, local governments and terrorist groups blocking access, terrorist and bandit attacks, and anti-terrorism laws that restrict who the aid groups can deal with -- not to mention the massive scale of the current crisis. Below are a few images from the past several weeks in East Africa. One immediate way to help is to text "FOOD" to UNICEF (864233) to donate $10, enough to feed a child for 10 days, more ways to help listed here.

38 photos

[sicheAscems]

Oh my God. That really breaks my heart.