Archive for December 3rd, 2023

03/12/2023

Unprecedented Drought Emergency

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — A new report by the UN team combatting desertification reveals alarming trends over the past two years which have resulted in an unprecedented emergency due to human-induced droughts.

Sand flows from a child's hand like through an hourglass. In southwestern Ethiopia, drought worsened by climate change is threatening crops and livestock, pushing the population to the brink.
© UNICEF/Pouget | Sand flows from a child’s hand like through an hourglass. In southwestern Ethiopia, drought worsened by climate change is threatening crops and livestock, pushing the population to the brink.

The Global Drought Snapshot report, released by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on Friday [], coinciding with COP 28, paint a grim picture of the scale of lives and livelihoods lost to droughts.

Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD Executive Secretary, emphasized the urgency of the situation. “Unlike other disasters that attract media attention, droughts happen silently, often going unnoticed and failing to provoke an immediate public and political response,” he said.

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03/12/2023

“Recurrent climate shocks, widespread insecurity and rampant poverty have pushed the people of Somalia to the breaking point”

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Deadly torrential rains and floods have affected more than two million people in several areas of Somalia, with over 100 killed and 750,000 displaced from their homes, the authorities and humanitarian partners said on Thursday [30 November 2023] in the capital, Mogadishu.  

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© UNICEF | File photo from May 2023 when Beledweyne town was flooded after the Shabelle River burst its banks.

The crisis began with the start of the deyr rainy season in October and comes six months after the country emerged from a historic drought that brought it to the brink of widespread famine.

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