U.N. Says Famine in Somalia Is Over, but Risks Remain

U.N. Says Famine in Somalia Is Over, but Risks Remain – NYTimes.com.

United Nations said on Friday that the famine that has killed tens of thousands of people in Somaliathis past year has ended, thanks to a bumper harvest and a surge in emergency food deliveries.But conditions are still very precarious, United Nations officials warned, with many Somalis still dying of hunger and more than two million still needing emergency rations to survive.

Somalia has lurched from disaster to disaster in the past 21 years, since the central government basically collapsed.

“The situation in Somalia is still in the throes of its worst humanitarian crisis in decades,” said Senait Gebregziabher, the head of operations in Somalia for Oxfam, an international aid organization. “The gains made so far could be reversed if the conflict worsens.”

“The world shouldn’t turn its back on Somalia,” she added, “solely because statistics say there is no longer a famine.”