AL Jazeera: Puntland Teetering on the Edge of Famine

In Puntland, a semiautonomous region of Somalia, a drought has ravaged grazing land. People who raise livestock for a living must move increasingly far distances – sometimes hundreds of kilometers – to find suitable land for their animals. Yet relocation is not enough as the drought spreads through the country. Six years ago, a famine in Somalia killed 260,000 people. “Now, nearly 6.2 million people - more than half the population - face acute food and water shortages,” reports Ashley Hamer for Al Jazeera. “Carcasses litter the landscape; small heaps of bones, shrivelled skin and fur. Countless sheep and goats huddle together in the sand and die where they lay.” As the young and other vulnerable people succumb to fever and diarrhea, families struggle to find relief or reach distant clinics set up by aid agencies. The government has sought to provide aid to the most badly hit regions, but the militant group al-Shabab has prevented the government from reaching many areas of Somalia. Somalia’s new president, elected in February, declared a state of disaster across the country, yet people have yet to see improvement in the dire conditions. –YaleGlobal