By Megan Burke and Marueen Cavanaugh
A 10-ton shipment of peanut-butter based nutritional paste landed today in Mogadishu for famine-victims in Somalia. Thousands of starving Somalis escape from their lawless country every day in an effort to get help at refugee camps in neighboring Kenya. It’s estimated at least 18-thousand children inside Somalia are suffering from malnutrition as a result of the famine and civil war. All this is heartbreaking news for anyone, but for members of San Diego’s large Somali community, it is particularly devastating. Many have come to San Diego to escape years of political upheaval and desperate poverty.
In this KPBS Midday Edition interview, which aired July 27, Robert Montgomery, regional resettlement director for the International Rescue Committee in San Diego, and Hussein Nuur, a Somali refugee who has been living in San Diego since 1992 and director with Horn of Africa, talk about their perspectives on the crisis.
Click here to listen to the interview
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Local Somalis Raising Funds for Famine Victims Back Home
The Somali Youth League of San Diego plans to hold a fund-raising banquet on Aug. 12. The money will be used to buy food packets to send to Somalia.