On a scale not seen in Africa in nearly two decades, famine is once again stalking the continent. According to estimates by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), as many as 38 million Africans are living under the threat of starvation, and many will succumb if emergency relief does not reach them in time. As of mid-2002, famine conditions were concentrated mainly in Southern Africa, but by the end of the year they had emerged just as severely in the Horn of Africa, and on a lesser scale in several countries in West and Central Africa.

(c) WFP, 2003

Oil

A Source and a Sea Lane

The Karnon Foundation has been established with two clear objectives:

1. to act as a focal point for information on the Horn of Africa and its bordering states, including southern Arabia and
2. to help the young people in immigrant communities, whose families originate from the region, to gain a balanced understanding of the realities of the region.

chaos and failed states ...

At this time it seems that the only news in the international media about the Horn of Africa and its neighbouring territories, like the Yemen, is about conflict, terrorism, piracy and famine, the Karnon Foundation believes that no policies affecting the region can be effective unless policy-makers and opinion formers have an objective and clear understanding of the complex and interwoven problems of the region.

It is increasingly clear that the problems of Somalia and the other countries of the region can no longer be contained, and their populations abandoned, in a state of isolation. Members of overseas Somali communities have become involved in the fighting in that country, a phenomena that it likely to spread to Yemen communities. Too often young men have travelled to the area, full of idealistic notions, to find themselves actors in extreme violence on behalf of groups to whom they have no natural connection.

a key strategic area

The Horn of Africa also sits astride one of the great ship lanes of the world, the Gulf of Aden, though which Europe receives the bulk of its crude oil supplies from the Middle East and the huge flood of goods and materials from China and India.

The region is therefore of critical strategic importance, and furthermore has enormous potential for future oil discoveries, especially in Somalia. It is an area that we cannot afford to ignore.#

simplistic explanations

The Horn of African has been bedevilled by "solutions" devised by outsiders with little understanding of the immense complexity of the issues. Simple solutions have no place here.For example is does not help the understanding of the problems of the region to claim that the current fighting in Somalia and Yemen is simply the extension of Al-Qaeda into new territories. A failure to get to grips with the issues, or an over-identification with one group or another, mindset which has bedevilled our understanding of the situation in Afghanistan, and which has only worked to the advantage of those who wish to discredit Western intentions in the region.

famine and drought ...

Somalia and the other countries of the region are now experiencing one of the worst droughts for twenty years and this has lead to famine and increased the flow of economic refugees from the region. It is vital that the international community understands the causes of these problems and focuses on the long term impact of climate change in the region.

Somaliland Appeals for Aid

HARGEISA, 16 February 2010 (IRIN) - Officials in Somalia's self-declared independent republic of Somaliland have appealed to the international community to provide humanitarian aid for hundreds of thousands of people, especially children, in the wake of prolonged drought.

"The affected population is estimated at about 40 percent of Somaliland's 3.5 million, which is equivalent to 1.4 million people," Ali Ibrahim, Minister for Planning and National Aid Co-ordination, told IRIN.

Following the failure of the Gu and Deyr rainy seasons in 2009, he said help was needed in water-trucking, construction and rehabilitation of boreholes, rehabilitation and desilting of dams, and the supply of medication for affected human and livestock populations to avert an outbreak of epidemics.

(c) IRIN 2010