(New York Times/Jeffery Gettleman) NAIROBI, Kenya — The drought-induced famine crisis in Somalia has eased somewhat, United Nations officials said on Friday, with the number of people facing imminent starvation dropping to nearly 250,000 from 750,000 because of rainfall and increased aid deliveries.
The situation remains bleak, however, and Somalia’s food security is still the worst in the world. But “substantial humanitarian assistance has mitigated the most extreme food deficits and reduced mortality levels,” according to a report issued by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network and the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, which are partly financed by the American government and the United Nations.
Somalia has lurched from crisis to crisis since its central government collapsed in 1991, and this year a famine swept through the southern regions of the country. Drought was the immediate cause; the year has been one of the driest in decades. But the drought unleashed a full-blown famine at the hands of the Shabab, a vehemently anti-Western militant group that controls much of southern Somalia and that has been blocking most aid agencies from reaching people in need.
(Read full story at New York Times)
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