bringing dinner back

“We will all starve.” — Sheik Ali Gab on what will happen if the U.S. continues to delay aid to Somalia because of fears that aid is assisting terrorists

What I knew about Somalia before today was this: Pirates are having a field day off its coast, and the U.S. had a failed mission there in the early ’90s during the Clinton administration (detailed in the movie and book Black Hawk Down), a failed mission that forever became the reason we didn’t get involved in the Rwandan genocide.

Some other interesting facts:

1. Flooding just this month has driven 16,000 more people from their homes in the Horn of African country where about 1.5 million have been uprooted since the start of 2007, Reuters reports. This brings the total of those in need of international assistance to 3.6 million — twice as many as this time last year.

Relief from America for victims of floods in Somalia

2. One in five Somali children suffers from malnutrition and tens of thousands need urgent medical care to survive, according to The New York Times. The U.S. is delaying aid because it is worried that aid is helping terrorists.

3. The U.S. is the largest donor to Somalia, providing about 40 percent of the $850 million annual aid budget and feeding more than three million people.

4. Only 13 percent of boys and 7 percent of girls attend primary school.

5. Somalia is a predominantly Muslim nation.

6. An estimated 9.8 million people live in Somalia, which is about the size of Texas. Population estimates are difficult because of the number of nomads and refugees in the country.

7. The leopard is the national symbol of Somalia.

A woman feeds a child a ready-to-eat therapeutic food at a displacement camp in the city of Jowhar, Somalia.

8. Meat is served only a few times a month, and many people — especially nomads and herdsmen — drink many quarts of milk daily. Common foods/drinks are milk (from camels, goats, and cows), aging camels (which may be slaughtered for their meat),  durra (a grain sorghum), honey, dates, rice, tea, corn, beans, millet, squash, and muufo, a flat bread made from ground corn flour.

9. Italy once occupied Somalia, so the people also have a love for pasta and marinara sauce.

10. Rural Somalis eat by scooping up their food with the first three fingers of their right hand or by using a rolled banana leaf.

How you can help:

• Donate to the World Food Programme. Just 25 cents fills the red cup the WFP gives to hungry child while they are at school. $50 feeds one child that meal at lunch for an entire year.

• Donate to Doctors Without Borders, which right now is working in places like the city of Galkayo. Located in the bone-dry central Somalia, the city is divided in half by warring militias and separatist regional governments that continuously clash in armed confrontations.

• Donate to UNICEF, which is is doing many things in Somalia, including creating Peace Schools, assisting with malaria education/treatment, providing food and safe water, as well as creating a Safe Motherhood Project to keep mothers and babies safe at birth.

• Donate to Oxfam International, which is currently providing hot meals to more than 60,000 people across Mogadishu every day, water to 200,000 people who have been forced to flee their homes, carrying out life saving relief programs, providing cash to the most vulnerable sections of society, and working with local Somali organizations to provide them with the tools to make a positive contribution to their own country’s future.