Read at : Google Alert – images of the Africa Drought
http://hornofafricanews.blogspot.com/2012/01/slow-africa-drought-response-cost-lives.html
Slow Africa drought response ‘cost lives’
The deaths of up to 100,000 people in the drought-affected Horn of Africa could have been minimised had there been a swifter reaction from the international community and aid agencies, according to a report.
The study by Oxfam and Save the Children says early warning systems forecast an emergency situation as early as August 2010, but a full-scale response to the drought did not start until July last year.
It said donors wanted “proof of a human catastrophe before acting to prevent one”.
By that time, malnutrition levels had deteriorated and parts of Somalia had already been declared famine zones.
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