A tortured choice in famine: Which child lives?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ijCfISrJ_MFmQ7HX-UFfFC7h6a-Q?docId=dec1bb49e62448deb0d7967b4d4068dd

By MALKHADIR M. MUHUMED, Associated Press – 4 hours ago

DADAAB, Kenya (AP) — Wardo Mohamud Yusuf walked for two weeks with her 1-year-old daughter on her back and her 4-year-old son at her side to flee Somalia's drought and famine. When the boy collapsed near the end of the journey, she poured some of the little water she had on his head to cool him, but he was unconscious and could not drink.

She asked other families traveling with them for help, but none stopped, fearful for their own survival.

Then the 29-year-old mother had to make a choice that no parent should have to make.

"Finally, I decided to leave him behind to his God on the road," Yusuf said days later in an interview at a teeming refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. "I am sure that he was alive, and that is my heartbreak."

[hamsterjill]

1. I cannot imagine the pain.

There are simply no words...

As a world, we should do better.

[lapislzi]

2. I can't rec this because it's too horrifying.

But it needs to be read, and known.

Sophie's Choice.
:cry:

[Blue_Tires]

3. kick

[sabrina 1]

4. Why can't they send out trucks or cars or even horses, camels

or whatever, to pick up some of the people walking on that road? I am asking because I do not know why. Is it too dangerous, are there people preventing it?

That is too heart-breaking to even imagine. No mother should ever have to make such a choice. Hell, who needs the imaginary version, it exists right here on earth.

[jeff47]

5. If they had that level of organization and cared about their people that much

They wouldn't be having a famine.

[sabrina 1]

6. I was thinking of the International Aid organizations.

[jeff47]

7. They'd have to be allowed in by the people who are refusing to admit there is a famine.

That's why these people have to walk to the next country for food.

[KamaAina]

8. Mercy Corps, for one, is already in.

http://www.mercycorps.org/hornofafricahungercrisis

Things are only getting worse for families in the Horn of Africa who are suffering through the region's worst drought in 60 years.

Our teams in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya are responding, by distributing food and water and expanding critical relief efforts. Mercy Corps is on the ground helping more than one million people in the region survive, and we are ramping up to help even more.

[sabrina 1]

10. I have such admiration for those aid workers.

It must be heart-breaking work with so much tragedy all around them. I hope that they get more help on the ground soon. CNN has sent Sanje Gupta and Anderson Cooper to report on the events. Hopefully that will help also.

[Sparkly]

9. One page on how to help

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/newsroom/somalia-famine--how-to-help.html

(I was done in by the story of a woman who'd seen two of her children die as she tried to get them to Kenya, and once she arrived there with her other children, she was raped - it's such chaos.)