The Horn of Africa suffers from more famine in a region experiencing severe conflict and instability, and according to United Nations estimates, about 20 million people in Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen and South Sudan are at risk due to malnutrition and famine.
The situation in East Africa has increased both critically in recent years. Drought and poverty are sweeping the region and there is no prospect for this, so the American Zakat Foundation dispatched its program director, Mr. Kamal Berro, on a field visit to Kenya and Ethiopia in late 2016, and indicated that poor families line up in front of charities to obtain food, and many villages depend on water. Muddy, unhealthy wells extracted from dilapidated wells that are in dire need of repair, and the matter is made worse by the droughts that hit that area and lead to the death of animals and their dispersal in the arid countryside.
Pirro explained that government agencies and relief organizations in the country are seeking help to obtain international aid, but the size of the response did not rise to the level of the scale of the disaster that was not recognized by the international community and that these countries are suffering from.
It is worth noting that short-term programs help mitigate the damage from a rapidly escalating crisis before it gets out of control, so the most affected communities must be provided with food, water and other vital supplies they need to avoid the next worst dry season. In this context, the Zakat Foundation mobilized to expand its program, provide immediate food, water, and help severely suffering communities, especially in Somalia. International aid must move from direct food and urgent aid to programs that help local bodies and institutions lay the infrastructure to confront natural phenomena. The task of shifting from direct aid to future aid will require close cooperation between leading international relief organizations and local government agencies.
According to statistics, about 6.2 million people in Somalia alone, equivalent to nearly half of the country's population, are at serious risk unless the necessary relief measures are taken. In return, the Somali government is appealing to the international community for aid, but these appeals were not taken seriously. And in the last famine that struck Somalia in 2011, it killed around 260,000 people.
