Monitoring press freedom and international affairs from Mid-Missouri Public Radio and the Missouri School of Journalism

Famine stalks South Sudan, Somalia

23 March 2017
Juang Gai Vol, 87, who hadn't eaten for three days, lies down at a food distribution site in Padeah, South Sudan, March 1, 2017. South Sudanese who fled famine and fighting in Leer county emerged from South Sudan's swamps after months in hiding to receive food aid being distributed by the World Food Program. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

The United Nations says that the world is facing the worst food crisis since World War II. Two of the hardest hit countries are in East Africa. In South Sudan, the UN has made its first formal famine declaration in six years.

Meanwhile drought and conflict in nearby Somalia are leading to comparisons with that country's 2011 famine, where 250,000 people died.

On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at the challenges to heading off mass starvation in two of the world's poorest countries.

Joining the program:

  • Sam Mednick, a freelance journalist based in Juba, South Sudan
  • Laetitia Bader, an East Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch
  • Kimberly Flowers, director of the Global Food Security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
  • Scott Paul, senior humanitarian adviser at Oxfam America

Monitoring press freedom and international affairs from Mid-Missouri Public Radio and the Missouri School of Journalism.
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