One hundred and ten people in Somalia died of starvation within the last 48 hours. Starvation due to drought. Starvation. In 2017.
But it’s happening “over there”, so we don’t see it, we don’t feel it. It seems we don’t even know about it or… dare I say… care about it.
About 363,000 acutely malnourished children in Somalia “need urgent treatment and nutrition support, including 71,000 who are severely malnourished,” the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network has warned. – Associated Press
Is it because we’re overwhelmed? Is it because we feel we’re incapable of preventing such horror? Is it because we’ve grown immune to the suffering of our fellow human beings? Of the aged, the infants, the mothers watching their children die?
Have we grown that cold or have we always been that way?
I’m editing this here to add an update regarding the cold reality of our times as the Trump Administration just, heartlessly, announced cuts in aid to starving nations. A question was asked during the budget director’s conference: “Are you worried that some of the most vulnerable people on earth will suffer?” To which Director Mulvaney callously responded: “We’re absolutely reducing funding to the UN and to the various foreign aid programs. That should come as a surprise to no one who watched the campaign.”
You can watch the video here (please do look past the liberties the poster of this video has taken with graphics and other special effect and listen to what’s actually being said):
We have to demand our tax dollars leave a detailed trail from our hands to their destinations. I want to know my money – money I don’t really have but spend because I am obligated to do so as a citizen of the US, and because I want to be part of the betterment of my community, both local and global – is going to places where it can do good. Where it can provide shelter, food and clean water to those in need. Where it can provide roads and education. Where it can provide proper, unrestricted healthcare. Where it will help to see that everyone has at least a chance to thrive.
If we can’t muster some concern for our extended human family then maybe we need to look closer. What would you do if your family were suffering as these people are? I wonder what would I do if I had to leave whatever I had – everything I had – carry my famished children as I struggle to take my family where help might be. What would I do if I arrived there, after watching others take that trek with me – some making it the whole way, others dying en route – only to realize there are too many of us seeking aid – medicine, food, water. What if I were told there was no help in sight. The drought that devastated my community had spread. There simply is no water.
The death toll, which was announced Saturday, was the first Somalia’s government has made public since it declared the drought a national disaster on Tuesday. The United Nations estimates that 5 million people in this Horn of Africa nation need aid, amid warnings of a full-blown famine. – Associated Press
We can’t pretend it won’t happen here. Our climate is changing. Temperatures are rising – as are sea levels. Crops are failing. Droughts alternate with flooding, each wreaking havoc. Scientists warn us it will get worse… that means there will be more climate refugees as times goes on.
When we find ourselves in need because of this, who will help us? Who will feed our crying children? Who will provide a sip, a life-saving sip, of clean water?
And why should they? Especially if we turn our back on them, on the cause of their plight and on what we could have done to mitigate at least some of these destructive changes to our climate.
We are one world. One people. Oceans may separate us. Walls may hinder us. Ideology might spark contention…or, perhaps, conversation. But we are supposed to be our brother’s keeper, are we not? And we are taught that we should treat our brothers and sisters as we wish to be treated.
Well, I wish to be cared for in my time of need. I wish to be celebrated in my time of joy. I wish to be someone who cares for and celebrates others the same.
These people wish only for food and water so they might survive.
What is your wish?
To read about what the UN is doing to help stamp out hunger, and to donate to the UN World Food Programme click the image above and it will take you to the UN’s World Food Program page.
