KENYA: Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour calls on world to help famine victims

Record ID: 361496

  • Title: KENYA: Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour calls on world to help famine victims
  • Date: 7th September 2011
  • Summary: MOTHER HOLDING HER MALNOURISHED CHILD VARIOUS OF N'DOUR TALKING TO A FATHER HOLDING HIS MALNOURISHED CHILD (SOUNDBITE) (English) SENEGALESE MUSICIAN, YOUSSOU N'DOUR, SAYING: "Something happened in Paris, about Libya everybody was going there and saying, in Africa, Libya is not really in Africa, it's in Africa but it's not really in Africa. And they go to Paris, London and
  • Embargoed: 22nd September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya, Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: International Relations,Disasters,Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA7RCVBZO8B85X1DDU4QPTXFQ7W
  • Story Text: Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour and Somali rapper K'naan are planning a series of events across Africa to raise funds and awareness about the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa.
    The announcement came as N'Dour, who has been a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) for 20 years, on Tuesday (September 6) visited the sprawling refugee camp complex of Dadaab, in northern Kenya.
    Famine has spread to six out of eight regions in southern Somalia, with 750,000 people facing imminent starvation, the United Nations said on Monday (September 5) and hundreds of people are dying each day despite the ramping up of relief aid.
    As he walked and interacted with refugees, N'Dour could not hide his anger and urged the international community to put as great an emphasis on the drought and famine crisis as it had on the crisis in Libya.
    "Something happened in Paris, about Libya everybody was going there and saying, in Africa. Libya is not really in Africa, it's in Africa but it's not really in Africa. And they go to Paris, London and Washington to discuss about Libya they have, they should have to come here talk about Africa, this is the real Africa. And I think that everybody can see what is happening today, people do not have interest about here because here is not the richest, its not the future and there is no oil, its not Gold, its not strategic for the next, for a lot of things, and they are alone," N'Dour said.
    Since 1991, the Horn of Africa country has been afflicted by a civil war that has seen hundreds of thousands killed and millions sent fleeing to neighbouring countries as refugees.
    Dadaab was set up as a camp for Somali refugees 20 years ago. It is now home to more than 400,000 people who have fled violence and hunger in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
    A much-delayed African Union summit last month to raise money to tackle famine in Somalia and drought in the Horn of Africa raised 351 million US dollars, although 300 million came from the African Development Bank.
    The United Nations (U.N.) says the worst drought in 60 years is affecting some 12 million across the Horn of Africa and the agency's children fund UNICEF estimates that across southern Somalia, 640,000 children are severely malnourished.
    N'Dour said he felt more people should e exposed to the suffering of the refugees.
    "In this afternoon at one moment, I was thinking, why didn't I bring my kids, and I just talked to their mum and they start school today. I just was thinking about bringing my kids here and to see the situation. You know, to feel the situation and its going to be in conversation many years with him," N'Dour added.
    The drought and famine have killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5 in the last few months in southern Somalia alone, according to United States Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates.
    The U.N warns that about four million people in Somalia are at risk of starvation. Some 12.4 million people in the Horn of Africa -- including Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are affected by drought.
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