In Somalia, the word for famine is so little used that few people know it or its meaning; the word they use is simply abaar – drought. Now, as the fifth failed rainy season draws to a close, the drought is the country’s worst in four decades.
For months now, UN and aid agencies have been predicting that famine would be announced any day, in October, in December, and now early next year. “Famine is at the door,” said UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths in September.
But the F-word has become a point of political contention, and is deeply divisive in Somalia.
There is no argument that 7.8 million people are without enough food or that 1.3 million have had to leave their homes because of the
