In Somalia, Even Camels Are Dying Of Thirst In Fourth Year Of East African Drought - NYT

[hatrack]

EDIT

In villages all around Galkaiyo, we saw stacks of bleached-out animal bones. People here are pastoralists, and when all the livestock die, the pastoralists are not far behind. Some decide to trudge to the nearest town and wait for the next sack of donated grain. But there is a cost to this, too. Pastoralists are proud people used to surviving in an incredibly harsh environment. Now they are beggars. Once all their animals are gone, and all their brothers’ and friends’ animals are gone, too, it is hard to rebuild that nomadic life of roaming the hinterlands in search of the green grass, a harsh but totally free existence that seems almost beyond time.

Now, even the camels are dying, which really frightens people, because camels can plod along for days on just a sip of water. They are the last animals to keel over in the desert and disappear into the sands. This is basically a picture of the whole middle belt of Somalia and much of East Africa.

EDIT

Oxfam just the other day said that 23 million people were at risk of starving because of drought. In some areas, it hasn’t a rained a drop in years. In northern Kenya, people are living off wild, chalky fruits that their stomachs can barely break down. Many can’t make it. I just found out that the very thin, older woman who was pictured on the front page of The New York Times on Sept. 8, being helped to a drink of water, died of hunger a few days after that photograph was taken because she was too weak to eat.

True, droughts are cyclical, and various studies suggest that Africa has experienced parched epochs before. But many people here these days believe the extreme dryness may be evidence of climate change and leaders in far-from-industrialized Africa, which produces just a fraction of the world’s CO2, are increasingly saying that their countries are paying a high price for greenhouse gases that are raising global temperatures worldwide.

EDIT

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/even-the-camels-are-dying/

[dgillam1975]

1. Ever seen Blackhawk Down?

Its a true story of what happened the last time we played politics in Somalia