Letters from our readers: The editor’s inbox
We received this interesting insight on the famine in the Horn of Africa from the head of DARA, an organisation that evaluates humanitarian aid operations:SIR – Your article on the situation in the Horn of Africa is sadly correct: in effect the world failed to react to the warning signs that a famine was imminent in the region until images of emaciated children were on our television screens. In February we sent a team to Nairobi to assess the response to the drought in Kenya and the crisis in Somalia for the Humanitarian Response Index. All the representatives from donor governments, the UN and other aid agencies interviewed were concerned that the situation would worsen dramatically if the April seasonal rains did not come.Even back in February there was a daily increase in the number of Somalis seeking access to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia in large part due the severity of the drought, a clear indicator that the problems were getting worse. Clearly, it was not a lack of information that impeded the international community to take early action to prevent loss of lives and minimise suffering. So why did it take so long for the world to react?One of the explanations for the delayed response is the highly politicised nature of the Somali crisis, where many of the different actors—al-Shabaab, the Transitional Federal Government, governments in neighbouring Kenya and …
