By Abdalle Ahmed
More than two million were affected by severe droughts in Somalia in 2011. Photo by /Abdalle Ahmed/. RBC Raxanreeb.com.
MOGADISHU (RBC) A new report estimates that 260,000 Somalis died in the 2011 severe famine that the country. Half of the victims were five years old or younger Somalis, the report said.
The report which is officially released on Thursday by FEWSNET, a famine early warning system funded by the U.S., and the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit – Somalia said that the death toll of 260,000 is higher than that of the Asian Tsunami. But, back in 2011, the U.N. warned that three times that many people could die from the famine in Somalia.
According to the report, the toll was also exacerbated by extremist militants from Al Shabab who banned food aid deliveries to the areas of south-central Somalia that they controlled. Those same militants have also made the task of figuring out an accurate death toll extremely difficult.
United Nations Humanitarian Office in Somalia did not comment on the report and the number of death toll it gave.
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