Can early intervention prevent humanitarian disasters?

[Deeq A.]

In april david beasley, the head of the World Food Programme (wfp), warned of the danger of “multiple famines of biblical proportions” as a result of covid-19. History suggests that Somalia’s 16m people are especially vulnerable. Famines in 1992 and 2011 each claimed more than 200,000 lives. A drought in 2016-17 displaced more than 1m people and caused losses and damage of over $3bn. This year, in addition to the pandemic, crops have been swept away by floods and ravaged by desert locusts (with a new swarm on the way). The triple blow means that 3.5m people, more than a fifth of the population, face hunger between July and September, according to an agency of the un and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, an American-funded outfit that monitors some 30 countries.

Source: Hiiraan Online