4 years and 9 kilos

(ES)

© John Ndiku/OCHA

According to WFP, the situation in the Horn of Africa is as follows:

• Drought in the Horn of Africa, coupled with conflict in Somalia, has affected over 13 million people. 

• On 5 September, the UN announced that the famine in southern Somalia had spread to the Bay region. There was already famine in  Lower and Middle Shabelle, parts of Banadir and parts of Bakool.

• WFP operations in the region require US$767 million for the next six months. The budget shortfall, taking into account pledges and confirmed contributions, is US$215 million.

According to UNICEF, in the words of Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director:

"The situation is terrible now.  Tens of thousands of people have already died. More than 300,000 children across the region are severely malnourished and at imminent risk of dying.

In Somalia alone, 1.4 million children are affected by this crisis.

Already, we estimate that 390,000 children in Somalia are suffering from malnutrition; 4/5 of whom are in the central south zone.  In some areas there, we are seeing historically high rates of severe acute malnutrition, which means that the number of children in that zone facing imminent death is approaching 140,000."

After reading these figures I have only read one that moves me even more:

4 years and 9 kilos

That is the age and weight of Natuso¹, a girl literally starving in Benassar Children's Hospital in Mogadishu.

If Natuso survives, she may suffer infibulation, she will never go to school, before reaching adolescence her father will agree on a marriage with a neighbor or relative. Until the wedding ceremony, she will remain a virgin, any suspicion of the opposite would be a dishonor to her family and her parents and siblings would have to satisfy the future husband with his fiancee's death.

In a country like Somalia, after more than 20 years of war, with armed militias out of control raping and looting in its path, Natuso might be raped, and therefore repudiated by her family. Will not be easy for her to live alone with her son engendered after have been raped. And if she decides to abort, her life would be jeopardized by the poor conditions in which these interventions are practiced.

Probably, Natuso will live  in the most absolute poverty and discriminated against by being born a girl. Although she recovers this time, it is likely that in a few months gets back to be admitted again. Perhaps a more serious illness that she was never vaccinated, or gunshot wound in one of the frequent shootings in the capital.

The only good owned by Natuso is her own life. And despite all the suffering and pain of a life of extreme poverty and uncertain future, she strives to fight with all the strength that her frail body allows in order to escape from death.

Natuso has discovered, no doubt, a powerful reason to continue living in a totally hostile world to her. She probably could not understand how we, the inhabitants of "first world" rich and civilized, we are not able to find million reasons to help them. However, I'm sure she, in his infinite love for life, endowed with the strength and resilience characteristic of the millions of women and girls suffering in the world, has forgiven us for our indifference and will live, just like me and many others, with the hope of a more humane and egalitarian world for herself and her children.



¹The average weight of a 4 years old girl is 15.5 kilos.

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Lost opportunities

(ES)

In our world there are so deeply rooted social inequalities that we live with them and hardly touch our hearts.

Discover that inequality and social injustice that we usually recognize around us, are a problem caused by the lack of opportunities for the sufferer. That there are customs that favor the entrenching of discrimination. That the delusion of happiness caused by consumerism is the food of our ego. And the more our ego and our greed are, the greater the gap in wealth distribution, and we become more tolerant of discrimination and inequality. Omitting that by choosing this hedonistic life, that by accepting the customs without further, we are stealing opportunities to the weak and underprivileged.

Only those who have the chance to choose can break the barriers imposed on us by the system, allowing the underprivileged to recover their lost opportunities.

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The next revolution

(ES)

"Men do harm or for fear or for hatred."
The Prince.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)

When we hear of the detention and torture of Palestinian children by the army of Israel.
When we hear of the torture and death of children at the hands of the secret services and the Syrian army.
When we hear of children raped and killed in DR Congo by armed militias.
When we hear of Iraqi children killed by American troops during the assault on a house.
When we hear of indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

A boy practises walking with his prosthesis at the ICRC orthopaedic centre in Kabul, October 2010
© Kate Holt/IRIN

What do we think?

We try to find answers to some facts that shudder us. What leads a human being to commit such atrocities? There is no rational answer, a human behavior so contemptible only can be explained by the spiral of hatred and the abyss of fear. Irrational feelings that dominate the actions of those who suffer them.

How much hatred and fear are necessary to torture and murder a child. To tie his hands and shoot to head. To rape a girl in front of their parents and siblings. Impossible to explain. Impossible to understand for those who have never felt that way. Acts that can not go unpunished.

When an innocent child becomes an enemy, the question is not why a soldier or a mercenary is capable of torturing and killing him without mercy. The question is how prejudice and propaganda have influenced to fuel and amplify the hatred of one people to another. Why unfounded fears and nonexistent threats are a powerful means of governments to convince the public opinion of the unavoidable destiny of a people. How the rootlessness and fear of children being recruited against their will as child soldiers get them to become monsters.

The spiral of hatred has no end, and fear is a black abyss of unfathomable depths. The fight against violence starts in each of us, overcoming our prejudices, not getting pulled by the propaganda, being critical of our governments, and above all, forgiving.

Throughout history, we have lived many revolutions, perhaps, the next revolution to come, also the most necessary, is the revolution that is born in each individual so to give it greater social and emotional awareness.


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