The famine in Somalia 10 years ago should drive us to action today

Today more than 41 million people are one step away from starvation. A deadly mix of conflict, climate change and the economic fallout of COVID-19 are driving ever worsening hunger for millions of children and their families. In some hunger hotspots, children are literally living under famine conditions. Girls and boys are not just starving but are being starved to death.

The last time the world faced a catastrophe of this scale – the 2011 Somalia famine – 260,000 people died. Half of them were children. The world said never again. But now, the hunger crisis has gone global.

If we stand by and do nothing, children will not just starve but they will also be forced to make terrible survival choices that will put them in harm’s way and leave lasting consequences. Forced marriage, begging, migration, survival sex are just some of the things children will be forced into to try to stay alive.

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