The tragedy is relative. That one or two hundred people die of hunger in Spain is a tragedy. Now, if a hundred or two hundred people die of hunger in Somalia, if a thousand or two thousand people die of hunger in Somalia, that is something else. The world is so macabre that two thousand deaths from something as simple and natural as eating can be considered good news. Franz Celestin is the head of the IOM mission in Somalia and he has no choice but to rejoice during a telephone conversation with LA RAZÓN, since the famine that threatened to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people could be prevented in time thanks to the rapid action of international organizations.
Celestin makes it clear that Somalia has not suffered a famine as per. For it to be considered a famine, it is necessary to declare it as such, something that has not been necessary this year “thanks to the support of donors who have prevented it, especially the United States.” It’s been close, but they’ve made it. He affirms that “the capacity of the system was about to overflow” during the most tiring months, and remember a conversation held with this newspaper during the month of July, when the UN had barely raised 30% of the money needed to deal with the crisis. Then it was feared that the famine that occurred in 2011 and that killed nearly half a million people in East Africa would repeat itself. The main risk came from the fact that Somalia has been suffering from a drought for five years.
The RAE defines tragedy as a feminine noun, a sad and unfortunate situation or event that affects people or human societies. Since 2019, 3,349 children under the age of five have died in nutritional stabilization centers monitored by UNICEF. More than a thousand of the deaths took place in 2022. To these numbers should be added the deaths of children over the age of five and a handful of thousands who have not been targeted by UNICEF, which does not have access to areas controlled by terrorists. It seems wrong to say that the tragedy has been avoided.
A tragedy that could be said to have been prevented because it could have ended a large part of the eight million people who are currently in a situation of vulnerability in Somalia. A tragedy that has already displaced 1.8 million Somalis from their homes. A tragedy with the refugee camps at the limit of their capacities and punctuated by the jihadist expansionism of the Al-Shabab group, which today controls the fertile lands of the country and is fighting an open war against the Government of Mogadishu and a coalition of international forces. Lisa Hill, UNICEF Somalia communications specialist, agrees with the relativization of the tragic, considering that “the word should not be needed famine to get the support you need during a drought crisis. We require immediate and long-term funding for children living on the front lines of climate change, to prevent this devastation from repeating itself for years to come.”
“Prevention is better than cure,” says Celestin at a time when one wonders if the promised famine was, as he claimed in July, an inevitable reality. Throughout the conversation, she insists that the work of the IOM and other organizations on the ground consists precisely in preventing, uprooting the tragedy, and not acting once the deaths begin to get out of control. This year has been a success, if it can be said that way: terrorism continues, vulnerability continues, pain continues, but famine has been avoided in official terms. In a country where tragedy requires hundreds of thousands of lives tossed away, one could speak of a resounding success.
Because the work of IOM and UNICEF is critical and very delicate. When asked how they access the territories at risk under the control of Al-Shabab, Celestin replies that “those in need have to move towards the aid areas, since it is currently not possible for us to introduce aid into the controlled areas.” by the terrorists.” This means that, first, the number of internally displaced persons will be higher in Somalia, and, second, that the number of refugees registered in the camps will increase. He does not hesitate when declaring that “if we had guarantees to move freely, we could save many more lives.” He recalls that Al-Shabab allowed aid to enter during the 2011 famine, but different political and military conflicts have led to security guarantees diminishing in recent years.
El Niño, next threat
“The problem now is that we find too many people living in very small spaces. The drought has pushed the population to the cities.” In Somalia there is always a problem, a looming tragedy just around the corner. The displaced people who drag their sandals around the country meet other displaced people in the crowded urban centers, they are thousands of individuals with different customs and roots. misunderstandings arisearguments, intercommunal violence.
Organizations such as the IOM seek to create “social cohesion” to address the anxiety generated by scarcity. In addition to the violence generated by the jihadists, violence between communities has also intensified in Somalia due to the scarcity of resources. This must also be fought against. Prevent and even fix before it breaks completely.
The work of Celestin and his team is not easy. When the danger of famine has passed (for now), she looms a new threat with a name as lethal as it is childish: The weather phenomenon known as El Niño could soon penetrate Somalia and destroy their territory with the force of the floods. El Niño is nothing more than a natural phenomenon associated with atmospheric changes and characterized by fluctuations in ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific.
The result, in summary, is usually expressed in the form of torrential rains. “The ground is like a sponge”, exemplifies the head of operations of the OIM, “if you wet it suddenly, the water will slip and fall outside. If you wet it after you wet it, it will absorb the water much better.” After five years of drought, the Somali soil is a petrified sponge. A storm that is too strong could drag thousands of homes with it and further increase the already unassimilable number of displaced persons. The tragedy is there, waiting. Help is still needed. El Niño will come or he will not come, but if he comes you will have to be prepared, and if he does not come you will have to prepare for the next thing. Celestin and her team cannot rest: the lives of millions of people depend on her work, the importance of which depends on how their tragedy is defined.