The Somalia Crisis
Floor Speech
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, the Horn of Africa is currently suffering from the worst drought in 60 years, one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent memory. For both moral and national security reasons, it demands a strong, clear, sustained response from this institution.
Last week, famine was declared in parts of southern Somalia. This means acute malnutrition rates among children now exceed 30 percent, that more than two people per 10,000 die every day, and that people are not able to access food or other basic necessities.
One out of every five households in famine-declared areas have no food at all. The malnutrition rates in Somalia are currently the highest in the world. In the last few months, tens of thousands of Somalis, the majority of them children, have died as a result of causes related to malnutrition. In some of the most affected areas, an estimated 310,000 children are acutely malnourished.
The worst may be yet to come. Eight million people are in need of assistance in Ethiopia and Kenya. Unless the global community and humanitarian agencies intervene now, it's predicted that the entire south of Somalia will face famine within the next 2 months.
Nearly a thousand people are arriving daily at overcrowded refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. Many have journeyed for weeks to get there. According to Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, the roads to these camps "are becoming roads of death. Over half the women I talked to had to leave children to die or had children die. In the Horn of Africa, we could lose a generation.'' And the troubles do not end there. Sexual violence against women in these already overcrowded refugee camps is on the rise.
This crisis didn't happen overnight. The eastern Horn of Africa is prone to chronic food insecurity. What is more, below-average rainfall in late 2010 and the spring of 2011 anticipated drought conditions, which have been dramatically worsened by the fact Somalia has not had a central government since 1991. Drought conditions have also progressively worsened throughout the year in Ethiopia and Kenya.
To address the ongoing crisis, Secretary Clinton recently announced that the United States would provide another $28 million in aid for people in Somalia and for Somali refugees in Kenya, in addition to the over $431 million in food and nonfood emergency assistance already provided for the region this year.
It's a good start. But we need to ensure that the appropriate U.S. funds are available to address this crisis this year and that Congress provides enough funding to maintain our ability to really address these crises. It is a matter of life and death for the most vulnerable people in the world.
We do this not just out of moral responsibility, although that should be compelling enough. It is also because our national security interests need to be represented to maintain the capability to combat food insecurity in the Horn of Africa and other critical regions around the world. It's about our national security. Anti-hunger programs can help this crisis and strengthen international diplomacy. Yet, unfortunately, we have seen the money for international food aid cut back severely. When we fight hunger and poverty, we undercut the recruiting base of those who would threaten us--the terrorists who would threaten us.
Let me conclude by saying we know what we can do to help. We have the ability to alleviate hunger and suffering of millions in the Horn of Africa. We know that doing so is the right thing to do. It makes us safer in the long run. We lack the political will to do the right thing. I urge my colleagues, support funding for these critical programs in the coming budget for the millions of suffering in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, for the humanitarian crisis of the future, for the continued safety and the security of the United States.
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