WORLD’S GREATEST ONGOING HUMANITARIAN DISASTER REACHES A CRISIS POINT
13 July 2011 (Posted by Everett Rosenfeld) - With more than 60,000 starving and thirsty Somalis camped outside of the world's largest refugee camp, what some aid agencies deem the world's worst humanitarian crisis is facing its "critical days," according to a UNICEF spokesperson.
Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, originally constructed to hold 90,000 people — making it the biggest camp in the world — is now home to approximately 400,000 people according to Bettina Schulte, Dadaab spokeswoman of the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR. Well beyond capacity, the camp is drawing thousands upon thousands of drought-fleeing Somalis, many of whom have no choice but to live in even more tenuous circumstances in the environs around the camp. Yearly dry seasons often send inhabitants of the warn-torn country fleeing into neighboring Kenya, but the Horn of Africa's worst drought in 60 years will provoke an even more desperate crisis should the current refugees in eastern Kenya and the 1,400 new ones arriving each day not receive sufficient aid.
"In a week's time we'll know whether we've turned a corner," said UNICEF spokesperson Patrick McCormick. "These are the critical days."
Read more . . . http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/07/13/worlds-greatest-ongoing-humanitarian-disaster-reaches-a-crisis-point/#ixzz1S3D6AgS8
RISING FOOD PRICES CAUSING YEMENI FAMILIES TO TAKE DESPERATE MEASURES - UN
12 July 2011 – Food insecurity is on the rise in parts of Yemen, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reported today, adding that families are trying to cope by liquidating their assets, skipping meals and diverting funds from health care and education.
They were taking such desperate measures because the price of fuel in the black market has risen by 500 per cent since January 2011, WFP spokesperson Emilia Casella told a news briefing in Geneva.
She added that the price of bread has increased by 50 per cent, the prices of flour, sugar and milk have risen between 40 and 60 per cent and water prices are also going up – all of which are contributing to a worsening situation for the general population and especially for the most vulnerable people.
Read more . . . www.un.org
********HEALTH – ANCIENT WISDOM, NEW KNOWLEDGE
DAKAR, 11 July 2011 (IRIN) - No one can tell 64-year-old Fatoumata Kané anything new about the plants and tree bark around her town of Banamba in western Mali, but the traditional healer recently learned how to measure a child’s upper arm to detect malnutrition.
Scores of families bring ailing children to Kané each week. She is renowned in the region for her healing powers, but now refers suspected malnutrition cases to the public health centre. The collaboration, initiated by local health agent Oumou Sangaré of Helen Keller International (HKI), is an example of how NGOs are tapping into the influence of traditional healers and local elders to fight under-nutrition.
Across sub-Saharan Africa health experts commonly train traditional healers to detect conditions needing something other than indigenous medicine; the fact is that when illness strikes many people’s first move is to go to the local healer. “It is always people’s first choice here,” said a doctor in Sierra Leone who requested anonymity. “It’s a custom people are addicted to.”
It is custom, but often it is also the only health care people can afford or physically access. In some countries in Africa and Asia 80 percent of people depend on traditional medicine for their primary health care, according to the World Health Organization.
Scores of families bring ailing children to Kané each week. She is renowned in the region for her healing powers, but now refers suspected malnutrition cases to the public health centre. The collaboration, initiated by local health agent Oumou Sangaré of Helen Keller International (HKI), is an example of how NGOs are tapping into the influence of traditional healers and local elders to fight under-nutrition.
Across sub-Saharan Africa health experts commonly train traditional healers to detect conditions needing something other than indigenous medicine; the fact is that when illness strikes many people’s first move is to go to the local healer. “It is always people’s first choice here,” said a doctor in Sierra Leone who requested anonymity. “It’s a custom people are addicted to.”
It is custom, but often it is also the only health care people can afford or physically access. In some countries in Africa and Asia 80 percent of people depend on traditional medicine for their primary health care, according to the World Health Organization.
Read more . . . http://www.irinnews.org/
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