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Good evening. This morning, the United Nations issued a famine declaration for South and
Central Somalia. I also had a chance this morning to visit with Somali refugees in the
Dadaab camp, and to visit other drought-affected communities inside of Kenya at Wajir. What
I saw was striking. At Dadaab, I saw young child after young child weary from a long
journey, lined up waiting for access to food, medicine, basic services that can make the
difference in saving their lives. I met mothers, like Habiba (ph), a woman who had traveled
for 33 days by foot with her two children, suffered a robbery along the way, in order
to arrive at Dadaab and have access to safety, food, and basic human security.
We know that there are 11.5 million people who are at real risk of hunger, starvation,
and other ills related to this drought. And we now know that there are parts of Somalia
that have met the official determination of being a famine. And it is no surprise that
those famine-affected areas are precisely those areas where ineffective local governance
and Al Shabaab's precluding any humanitarian access to those populations has resulted in
high death rates and the refugee crisis we now see.
It is in this context that the United States Government is focused on a well-coordinated
and aggressive response in order to address short-term needs and save lives, but also
to address the long-term opportunities to avoid these types of famine and failure when
we see them happen time and time again in this part of the world.
Al Shabaab has made a pledge that it will allow unfettered humanitarian access to the
World Food Program, the UN agencies, and humanitarian actors. We are determined to test that pledge.
We would like to see that access expand dramatically and rapidly. We are providing food and other
programmatic resources in support of those actors as they begin to expand their services
in those areas,