World warned of Africa crisis before -UN

UN: The United Nations says it has been warning the world for a year about the possibility of famine and a massive humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. It was less than two weeks ago that UN officials were alerting world bodies about famine in two areas of Somalia and the critical situation of Somali refugees, who fled to neighboring Kenya, a Press TV correspondent reported on Tuesday.

The situation is slipping further into chaos with 12.4 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti in dire need of help, according to UN statistics. “Our early warning system worked and we sounded the alarm last year when we appealed for 1.6 billion dollars to tackle the situation,” said UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, Valerie Amos.

Droughts in the Horn of Africa are not uncommon, but decades of power struggle among Somali warlords, an Ethiopian invasion and US actions and alliances against the al-Shabaab group have destabilized the area to the point of extreme vulnerability.