US prepares military response to world-historic famine in sub-Saharan Africa, Arabian Peninsula - World Socialist Web Site

25.4.17

US prepares military response to world-historic famine in sub-Saharan Africa, Arabian Peninsula - World Socialist Web Site: Tens of millions people, including 17 million Yemenis, 7 million Nigerians, 3 million Somalis and 1 million South Sudanese, are in imminent danger of dying from lack of adequate nutrition, according to United Nations (UN) estimates. Countries impacted by famine and food shortages include South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

In Somalia, where the Trump administration announced the deployment of regular US ground troops for the first time since 1994, the price of a 20-liter can of water increased from 4 to 40 cents during the past few weeks alone. Somalia is experiencing record rates of child malnutrition and faces the die off of 75 percent of its livestock, according to Save the Children.

The Yemen war, waged by the United States and Saudi Arabia since April 2015, has transformed one of the most ancient societies in the world into the ground-zero of world famine. Some 20 million Yemenis are now on the verge of starvation. The naval blockade of Yemen’s ports, enforced by American and Saudi ships, is strangling the flow of goods into a country that depends on imports for 90 percent of its food supply. The US-Saudi bombing campaign has relentlessly targeted Yemen’s social infrastructure, completely paralyzing its economy and turning 80 percent of its population into paupers. The approval by Trump of a Navy SEALs raid into Yemen, as his first official military action, has signaled his intention to expand direct US participation in the war.