Oxfam Declares Situation In Somalia As "Africa's Worst Crisis For Many Years"

According to the BBC, Oxfam's Somalia co-ordinator, Hassan Noor, has said that the current situation in Somalia is the worst there has been in any African country for many years. Still the mainstream media tend to report very little about the situation on the ground. Maybe we find other 'wars' more interesting, maybe we turn off when humanitarian crisis' and destitute people are flashed across our screens, or maybe there are just too many conflicts in the world to keep in tune with, but whatever the case, Somalia deserves a little more attention from us right now. The population have been terrified for too many years, the vast majority of which have nothing to do with any of the warring factions.

June.03.2009 - George Valentine Corr, Blatant News Editor
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WHERE IS THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION?
If the US & UK can send 140,000 troops (or whatever!) into Iraq on a whim, to save the people of Iraq from its 'cruel dictator', surely they would be just as interested in sending even 50,000 troops into Somalia to protect its people from the many armies that now inhabit their country, all of whom commit terrible acts of genocide on a daily basis and have had nothing to fear from the International community throughout this entire saga. This is the common sense approach which Somali's need. This is the support that they need. And, considering what bad press the western military's have recieved of late, they could pick up some excellent positive public support if they actually went into a land that is full of people that are not just oppressed, but are also dying from hunger and lack of water. Not to mention the shootings, rape and general mayhem which the government forces, Islamic fighters and Somaliland seperatists carry out.

THE CURRENT SITUATION
According to Oxfam about 700,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Mogadishu alone since the beginning of 2007. They say that a total of 1,000,000 people are homeless all across Somalia, and about 3,400,000 are in need of urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance. This is about half of the population! I read an article a few weeks back that suggested that about 20-25% of all females in Somalia had been raped during this conflict, by one side or the other, and you will find stories like this all over the net if you look, but you will need to look as nobody is concentrating all their efforts on helping these poor people, except for the aid agencies that brave the various warring factions to help those in need. Inflation has crippled the county, so most just cannot afford food, and there has not been a central government in Somalia since 1991. So why is it taking us so long to reach out to them?

THE BASICS ARE WHAT IS NEEDED
On the Oxfam website it details how they are trying to help the people of Somalia, mostly through food and water aid. Access is restricted in parts of Somalia, because the local fighters will not hold back, even when it comes to international aid workers, they are still at risk of attacking them. So where are all the heroes? Or more precisely, where are all the hero's depicted in our Hollywood flicks? Sure isn't that the kind of world we live in? In a TV show this would be the exact situation that the UK's or the US's special forces would be deployed to sort out. Here are camps with thousands of people, starving, no water, and in constant fear as some of the warring factions will enter the camps and take whoever or whatever they want. These people have no protection. This is tailormade for the SAS and the rest of them groups of so-called heroes to sort out. Their governments need to begin to make use of them in these kinds of situations. That would be the common sense approach that is clearly needed.

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