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Somali Refugees: No Food to Break Ramadan Fast
August 01, 2011

Somalia Somalia's famine refugees, weakened by months of drought, on Monday began Islam's punishing Ramadan fast amid the tents and shacks of the world's largest refugee camp. (Reuters Photo)
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didikarjadi
9:31am Aug 2, 2011

padt

Arab world asked to give as Africans starve.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moo has called the situation "catastrophic" and has personally appealed to Arab leaders for immediate humanitarian aid to feed the famished in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Kenya. Ban telephoned Saudi King 'Abdallah Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz to thank him for Saudi's donation of $60 million for food supplies through the UN's World Food Program and to ask for more. Similar personal appeals went to the rulers of the oil-rich Gulf states of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ban's spokesman said.

Until this week, Arab donors have only reported a small amount of humanitarian aid to the Horn of Africa, according to Global Humanitarian Assistance (GHA), a British-based aid monitoring group. Saudi Arabia was the largest donor among countries outside the developed world, with $258 million given last year, up substantially from $82 million in 2009, according to the GHA. The UAE gave $38 million in 2010. So far, an estimated $1.1 billion has been committed from non-Arab donor countries.

Muslim and Arab intellectuals and leaders often complain of Western meddling in their societies, but most of the aid organizations that are now trying to save Somali lives are Western.


padt
8:37am Aug 2, 2011

So, Muslim Al Qaeda wont let aid through to their fellow brother and sister Muslims. Terrible! But are they any different to their fellow Muslims here and elsewhere in the Muslim world where corrupt officials and politicians have bank accounts stuffed with stolen money, while, here and elsewhere in the Muslim world, other Muslims starve and live lives of abject poverty, malnutrition, lack of education, job opportunities and political freedom?

If every Muslim in the world practiced Ramadan in the spirit in which it is intended - by the end of this month there would be no poverty and social disorder in the Muslim world.


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Mogadishu, Somalia. Muslims around the world mark sundown during the holy month of Ramadan with extravagant dinners to break their daily fasts. That kind of nighttime celebration is unthinkable this year for most Somalis, who already are suffering empty stomachs during the worst famine in a generation.

Tens of thousands of Somalis already have fled starvation to the world’s largest refugee camp in neighboring Kenya, where Mohamed Mohamud Abdulle said people can’t fast without food “to console the soul” at sundown.

“Today is the worst day I ever faced. All my family are hungry and I have nothing to feed them,” Abdulle said on Monday, the first day of the Muslim holy month. “I feel the hunger that forced me from my home has doubled here.”

Somalis fleeing famine say they simply don’t have enough food to prepare a traditional feast to end a day of fasting. Refugees say they have been unintentionally fasting for weeks or months, but without the end-of-day meal to regain their strength.

“I cannot fast because I cannot get food to break it and eat before the morning,” said Nur Ahmed, a father of six at a camp for internally displaced people in Mogadishu called Badbado. Ahmed’s wife died last year during childbirth, he said.

For most of the Muslim world, Ramadan this year falls at a time of rising food prices and political upheaval. Food prices typically spike during the Muslim religious month, and the elaborate dinners many in the Middle East put on to break the daily fast drive a deep hole in household budgets.

The United Nations says more than 11 million people in the Horn of Africa need food aid, but that 2.2 million need aid in a region of south-central Somalia controlled by the Al Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabab, which has not let many aid agencies operate in its territory, including the UN World Food Program.

In a bit of good news, though, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Monday that it is distributing food to 162,000 people in south-central Somalia affected by drought and armed violence. The food distributions in south-central are the first large-scale distributions in that regions since the beginning of the year, it said.

“This operation demonstrates the ICRC’s ability to deliver emergency aid directly to the people affected in southern Somalia,” said Andrea Heath. “But this distribution assists only a small percentage of those in need. More aid will be required to help the population bridge the gap until the next harvest in December.”

Associated Press