Famine killed nearly 75 million people in the 20th century, but had virtually disappeared in recent decades. Now, suddenly, it is back. In late February a famine was declared in South Sudan, and warnings of famine have also recently been issued for Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen.

Moreover, in January the Famine Early Warning System (FEWSNET) – a U.S. government-funded organization created in 1985 specifically to predict famines and humanitarian emergencies – estimated that 70 million people affected by conflicts or disasters worldwide will need food assistance in 2017. This number has increased by nearly 50 percent in just the past two years.

What explains this rapid rise in the number of people who need emergency food assistance? And why, in an era of declining poverty and hunger worldwide, are we suddenly facing four potential famines in unconnected countries?

What are famines?

Famines are extreme events in which large populations lack adequate access to food, leading to widespread malnutrition and deaths. More of these deaths are caused by infectious disease than starvation because severe malnutrition compromises human immune systems. This makes people much more susceptible to killer diseases such as measles, or even common conditions such as diarrhea. Young children are especially vulnerable.

Experts now agree on three characteristics that define a famine:

• At least 20 percent of households in a given group face extreme food deficits, with no ability to cope;

• At least 30 percent of children in a given group are acutely malnourished, meaning that their weight is dangerously low compared to their height; and

• Mortality rates exceed two people per 10,000 population per day. For comparison, a noncrisis rate in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa would be about 0.3.
   

People affected by famine may also experience other impacts, including widespread hunger, loss of assets, the breakdown of social support networks, distress migration and destitution.

The last large-scale famines affected the Horn of Africa in 1984-85 and 1992, and North Korea in the mid-1990s. Since that time, only one large-scale famine has occurred: a devastating crisis in southern Somalia in 2011 that killed a quarter of a million people.

Click to zoom. Famine Early Warning Systems Network
 

Human-made emergencies

For many years experts believed that famines were caused by a shortfall in food availability. Then in 1981 economist/philosopher Amartya Sen published “Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation,” which showed that famines actually resulted when food was available but  some groups could not access it. Although many people believe today that famines occur mostly in Africa, the deadliest famines of the 20th century were in Europe (Ukraine) and Asia (China).

Today we recognize famines happen only with some degree of human complicity. Some analysts assert that famines are crimes of either commission or omission, because human decisions and actions determine whether a crisis deteriorates into a full-blown famine. They also contend that we cannot eradicate famine without holding people who cause it accountable. 

Famines typically have multiple causes. They can include climatic factors such as drought, economic shocks such as rapid inflation, and violent conflict or other political causes. Their impacts are more severe when underlying factors make some groups more vulnerable.

Mortality during famines may be exacerbated by conflict and displacement. Deliberately cutting off access to food is often a means of war. It is not a coincidence that the threat of famine in South Sudan, northeastern Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia is occurring in the midst of protracted, violent conflicts.
 

For example, the 2011 famine in Somalia was caused by a severe drought, a dramatic spike in the cost of food and devastating loss of purchasing power, and conflict. These occurred on top of long-term environmental degradation, deteriorating opportunities in agricultural and pastoral livelihoods, and the absence of a central state authority.

One party to the conflict, Al Shabaab, was an armed group that the United States and other countries labeled as a foreign terrorist organization. Al Shabaab controlled people’s movements and access to markets, and excluded or directly threatened many humanitarian agencies.

External donor governments prioritized containing the terrorist threat, and warned that any stolen or diverted aid that ended up in the hands of Al Shabaab would be treated as a criminal offense. These policies made it extremely difficult for humanitarian agencies to assist groups affected by the famine.

This combination of human-made factors thwarted adequate prevention or response measures until the famine declaration provoked a more vigorous response. By then, the number of people being killed by the famine had already peaked. Not surprisingly, the most marginalized groups within Somali society were the worst affected.

Famines are recurring today because once again, conflicts and natural disasters such as drought are converging in vulnerable areas. Shortened recovery cycles between recurrent crises – due partly to climate change – leave ever-larger groups more vulnerable.
 

Better warning systems

Famines result from cumulative processes we can observe and predict. That means we can prevent them through timely public action.

Early warning systems such as FEWSNET monitor agricultural production and rainfall trends, commodity markets and price trends, and conflicts. They also track trends in food access, malnutrition or mortality, and labor migration among at-risk populations.

Governments and humanitarian agencies can use this information to prevent or limit famines. Since the 1950s, food aid has been the main tool for responding to famines. Producer countries ship food to countries in crisis, and humanitarian organizations like the World Food Programme deliver it to affected populations.

Now we are paying more attention to protecting people’s livelihoods to help them cope with crisis and recover afterwards. Cash transfers have become the primary form of aid, although the U.S. government also provides food aid.

Ready-to-use therapeutic foods – high-energy pastes typically made from peanuts, oils, sugar and milk powder – have significantly improved treatment of acutely malnourished children. Actions in other sectors, including water and health, are helping the humanitarian community prevent and respond to famines.
 

Acting in time

Nonetheless, even when famines and food access crises are predicted, governments, donors and humanitarian agencies often fail to head them off – a pattern known as the “early warning/late response” problem. Sometimes it is due to negligence or bureaucratic inertia. More frequently there are political reasons, or armed conflict blocks access to affected populations. And donor nation policies may limit where assistance can go for political and security reasons.

Today the situation is urgent. Humanitarian aid budgets have not kept up with needs in recent years.

Some governments in affected countries and donor nations are gearing up responsibly to meet this problem. Others are not, or are sending unclear signals. While the U.S. is responding to the current crisis, foreign aid is one of many areas in which the Trump administration has proposed major cuts.

Even when enough resources are available, more must be done to deliver it to people who need it. This means working out measures to ensure access before crises deteriorate into famine. National governments and even rebel groups should renew their commitment to International Humanitarian Law, which guarantees civilians caught in conflict the right to assistance, expressly forbids the use of food as a weapon of warfare and provides support for efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts. Timely action based on early warning can avert major crises and save resources and lives – but it requires political commitment and constant vigilance.

Peter Hailey, founding director of the Centre for Humanitarian Change in Nairobi and former Chief of Nutrition for UNICEF Somalia, contributed to this article.

Daniel Maxwell, Henry J. Leir Professor in Food Security, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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In November 2015, Asma Jama, a Somali-born woman living in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, was waiting for her pasta alfredo at Applebee’s, chatting in Swahili with her family, when she was confronted by Jodie Burchard-Risch. Burchard-Risch demanded that Jama speak English or go home. Then, she smashed her beer mug in Jama’s face.

The attack was shocking and made national news. This past December, Jama spoke at the sentencing hearing for Burchard-Risch, who pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and will serve six months in jail. Jama recounted the fear she lives with after the attack, saying she no longer goes anywhere alone. Still, she spoke words of kindness to the woman who showed her none. “In front of everybody here,” Jama told the packed courtroom, “I forgive you. And I hope that you choose love over hate.”

Minnesota is home to the nation's largest Somali population. And like so many Muslim communities throughout the United States, Minnesota Somalis are organizing to combat the Islamophobia stoked by Trump. The Minnesota Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) plans to activate 10,000 Minnesotans using a three-part strategy grounded in the belief that people will, when given a chance, choose respect and understanding instead of fear, following Jama’s example of rejecting hate.

CAIR-MN plans to use a combination of traditional organizing tactics and new outreach efforts to communities not historically engaged in this fight.

Successfully engaging thousands of people to fight Islamophobia depends on an understanding that Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-MN, laid out to about 60 Somali and non-Somali activists in late December. “Most Americans agree there is something wrong with how we are treating American Muslims,” Hussein said. “They know something is wrong, even if they cannot identify it.” As Trump’s presidency approached, Hussein told the room, “They know they’ve got to do something about it.”

Muslims expect American Islamophobia to intensify under Trump, and Somali Americans expect to be on the front line.

The Somali-American community had been the target of institutionalized Islamophobia prior to the campaign and subsequent election of Donald Trump. “The Somali community in Minnesota was at the blunt end of Islamophobia before this election,” says Hussein. “But it is a phenomenon that has outgrown all previous levels.”

Somalis in Minnesota are targeted.
The U.S. Census Bureau data estimates there are 40,000 Somali-speaking residents in Minnesota. Underreporting to the U.S. Census Bureau is common, though, and by some accounts, the number of Somalis—including resettled refugees, inter-state migrants, and native U.S.-born residents—could be twice as high. While Somali Americans have planted deep roots in the state, starting thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations, opening schools and mosques around the Twin Cities metro area and beyond, tension between the state’s largest Muslim population and native Minnesotans has risen in recent years.
The uncertainty and tension felt by Somalis result in part from the Somali identity inhabiting multiple American fault lines. Imam Hassan Mohamud put it bluntly: “We are Black. We are immigrants. We are Muslims.”

Mohamud, Imam at the Minnesota Da’Wah Institute, spoke at a recent anti-Islamophobia meeting, where he explained how Somali Americans feel the harsh rhetoric against Muslims, the anti-refugee rhetoric in general, and racism against African Americans. The compounding effect of this racism and Islamophobia has left Somalis feeling specifically targeted.

Last April, a Minnesota man crossed the border to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he burned down a Somali-owned restaurant. The same month, former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman wrote an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune intending to address the number of Twin Cities-based individuals who returned to Somalia to fight in that nation’s civil war. In the piece, Coleman labeled Minnesota “ground zero” for radical Islamic terrorism and called out “a specific population—Somalis.” The letter was titled “The Land of 10,000 Terrorists.”

Perhaps the biggest source of concern in the Somali community—and the one that makes Somalis feel uniquely targeted by the U.S. government—is a Department of Justice program called Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). The program is meant to root out radicalization and extremism on U.S. soil, but it has led to controversy and fear among Somali Muslims. Mohamud and Hussein both agree that CVE’s policy of offering money into a resource-starved population in exchange for information about activities taking place within the community has left the Somali community divided. Muslim support for CVE is rare, Hussein explained, but many are in a position where they need to choose the money over their opposition to the program.

According to Mohamud and Hussein, CVE imbeds Islamophobia into government policy. “The program’s very premise is Islamophobic,” Hussein points out. It targets one community, Somali Americans, and builds suspicion that any individual in that community might be a source of radical extremism. That’s “the playbook of the Islamophobia network,” Hussein says, and it affirms the principle that Somali Americans are a threat to America.

This was the tense landscape in Minnesota even before Donald Trump arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Nov. 6, two days before his election, to address his supporters. Trump said, “A disaster is taking place in Minnesota” as a result of lax vetting in refugee resettlement, “with very large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval.”

Trump didn’t refer specifically to the stabbing at a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, nor to the ISIS trial in which nine men were tried for providing support to the terrorist organization. But the message that he did share was clear: The Somali community as a whole is a threat to Minnesota. “You’ve suffered enough,” he told the crowd.

Building a strategy toward understanding.
CAIR-MN’s overall strategy to fight Islamophobia is rooted in Asma Jama’s story of violence and forgiveness. She “has the literal scars (of Islamophobia) on her face,” and could have retreated after her attack, says Hussein. “But she chose love instead of fear.”

The first part of the strategy is to make conversations about Islam easier for everyone by “training the trainers.” CAIR-MN will provide the preparation for people to accurately combat the misinformation and fear used to perpetuate Islamophobia. Then, the trainers can talk to those who might be susceptible to that fear, those who have little contact with Muslims and are unfamiliar with Islam.

Islamophobia feeds on small pieces of misinformation that build a case for fear, says Hussein. That strategy succeeds because “people make decisions based on what they feel” and not what is true about Islam or Muslims.

The second part is to share success stories of the Somali community with non-Muslim Minnesotans to challenge the ugly narratives about Islam. Much of that sharing will take place on social media, used by many Somali youth. Hussein estimates that 50–60 percent of the Somali population in Minnesota is under the age of 40. They know English, have adapted to the culture, and are one of community’s best advantages in the fight against Islamophobia. The youth, Hussein says, are better able to communicate across the cultural divide—on the internet and off—without losing their own cultural identity.

Finally, CAIR-MN envisions an increase in traditional non-violent organizing tactics that raise public awareness, such as rallies and community education events. Mobilizing public events around Islamophobic incidents or targeted neighborhoods remains a crucial part in the fight against Islamophobia.

The most important element in these parts, Hussein stressed, is reaching beyond the existing participants of a conversation. Most people having conversations about Islamophobia in Minnesota are talking to people who agree with them, he points out. During Trump’s presidency, the only way to progress will be to hold conversations with people who disagree. “You can no longer say these people disagree with me or voted the other way, so I am not going to have a respectful conversation with them.”

Hussein would like to work with evangelical congregations, where pockets of Islamophobia can be found. Muslim outreach to evangelical Christians could “re-engineer how we communicate on this issue,” he says. “Without that outreach, we’re just talking to the same people we have already reached.”

Gaining resilience from experience.
Some Muslims use humor as a way to assuage the fear and uncertainty. Mohamud joked about an anti-Islamophobia sticker produced by a local organization that was translated incorrectly into Somali and Arabic, before moving to a sincere plea to recognize that “not all Republicans” are Islamophobes. He related the story of former Utah Sen. Bob Bennet’s dying remarks to Muslims, in which he apologized for his party’s embrace of Islamophobia.

Hussein opened his meeting at CAIR-MN with similar levity, joking about the election even as the fear created by Trump’s victory animated the room. There are reasons to be positive. From the election of the nation’s first Somali representative, Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis, who was sworn in last week, to the overwhelming interest in fighting Islamophobia that has emerged since Election Day, Somalis are hopeful.
The Somali community in Minnesota is a big target for bigotry, and tensions are expected to get worse. But in their experiences of facing both institutional and societal Islamophobia, their resilience and optimism is evident.

Christopher Zumski Finke wrote this article for YES! Magazine. He blogs about pop culture and is editor of The Stake. Follow him on Twitter at @christopherzf.

This article was first published in YES! Magazine.
 

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Demonstrators gather at Washington Square Park to protest against President Trump in New York. Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

These include a range of restrictions on citizens from seven war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa. These are expected to include a temporary ban on most refugees and a suspension of visas. Sudan, Libya and Somalia are said to be on the list.

Questioned about when the additional measures would be announced, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said
 

You’ll see more action this week about keeping America safe.
 

Trump pledged during his election campaign to do just this by using what he termed “extreme vetting”. This comes after complaints from the president’s favourite website –Breitbart – that refugees from conflict zones were still being resettled in the US.

The developments will be a real blow to America’s large and thriving Somali and Libyan communities, for whom family reunions and visits from loved ones will be increasingly difficult. There were more than 150,000 Somali immigrants resident in the US as of 2015. Most entered after the 9/11 attacks.

It comes as the communities have been putting down roots, with the Somalis having elected their first legislator, Ilhan Omar. Omar, herself a refugee, is now an elected representative in Minnesota. It was a huge achievement, which she was keen to celebrate:
 

For me, this is my country, this is for my future, for my children’s future and for my grandchildren’s future to make our democracy more vibrant, more inclusive, more accessible and transparent which is going to be useful for all of us.
 

But it is not just Trump and the US throwing up barriers to Africans. The European Union is moving fast to halt the arrival of refugees and migrants on its southern shores, and is close to achieving the virtual “wall” that Trump is set on erecting.
 

Europe moves to seal migrant routes

Europe is close to sealing the routes refugees and migrants take across the Mediterranean. Consider the facts. These are the routes into southern Europe. (Map: Frontex Risk Analysis, Q2 2016)

The graphic produced by the EU’s Frontier Agency is clear: the major route that Africans are taking is via Libya.
 

The map below, from the same source, underlines the point.
 

Two routes that Africans have used in the past have almost been sealed. There is next to no transit by sea from West Africa through the Canary Islands and only a limited number arriving in Spain.

The Egyptian route through the Sinai and Israel has also been closed. The brutal treatment of Eritreans and Sudanese in the Sinai by mafia-style Bedouin families, who extracted ransoms with torture and rape, was certainly a deterrent. But this route was sealed in December 2013 when the Israeli authorities built an almost impregnable fence, blocking entry via the Sinai.

This has left Libya – and to a lesser extent Egypt – as the only viable route for Africans to use. Both are becoming more difficult. There has been the increasing propensity of Egypt to deport Eritreans to their home country, despite the risks that they will be jailed and abused when they are returned.
 

Libya, the final brick in the wall

Libya is critical to the success of the EU’s strategy, as a recent European assessment explained:
 

Libya is of pivotal importance as the primary point of departure for the Central Mediterranean route.
 

The EU has adopted new tactics to try to seal the central Mediterranean route. The countries keenest to push for this are Germany and Italy, which have taken the bulk of the refugees in recent years.

Earlier this month Italy’s Interior Minister Marco Minniti was dispatched to Tripoli to broker an agreement on fighting irregular migration through the country with Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the UN-backed Government of National Accord. Minniti and al-Sarraj agreed to reinforce cooperation on security, the fight against terrorism and human trafficking.

Mario Giro, Italy’s deputy foreign minister, told the Financial Times:
 

There is a new impulse here – we are moving as pioneers. But there is a lot of work to do, because Libya still doesn’t yet have the capacity to manage the flows, and the country is still divided.
 

The Italian proposals are very much in line with agreements the EU reached with African leaders during their summit in Malta in late 2015. The two sides signed a deal to halt the flight of refugees and migrants.

Europe offered training to “law enforcement and judicial authorities” in new methods of investigation and “assisting in setting up specialised anti-trafficking and smuggling police units”. The European police forces of Europol and the EU’s border force (Frontex) will assist African security police in countering the “production of forged and fraudulent documents”.

This meant co-operating with dictatorial regimes, like Sudan, which is ruled by Omar al-Bashir. He is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

What is clear is that Europe is determined to do all it can to reduce and finally halt the flow of Africans through Libya – the only viable route left for most African migrants and refugees to reach Europe.

Now Trump is joining these efforts with his own restrictions. For Africans fleeing conflicts the prospects look increasingly grim.

Author is Senior Research Fellow, Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study

Courtesy: The Conversation

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In Yemen, internally displaced children stand outside their family tent after the family fled their home in Saada province and found refuge in Darwin camp, in the northern province of Amran. Photo: UNHCR/Yahya Arhab

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