The orphans of Ebola

Orphans who survived Ebola in Sierra Leone are starving to death amid harvest shortages and some are being forced into the sex industry to pay for food. Researchers from British charity Street Child warn the situation will deteriorate if seeds are not distributed before the rains begin this month and planting becomes possible.

The charity, which has already received distressing reports of children dying due to a lack of food in rural parts on the country, has estimated there to be 12,000 orphans, many of whom are now forced to look after themselves. The charity has found that some children, rejected by their friends because of the stigma of Ebola, have tried to commit suicide, while girls are being forced into the sex industry to earn money to buy food.

Research team leader John Pryor said: 'Many rural communities which were under quarantine due to Ebola have lost their harvests and the people are truly suffering. 'As a result they have nothing to plant prior to the rainy season, which is traditionally known as the hunger season. 'The most vulnerable, including many Ebola orphans, are dangerously hungry already, before it has even begun. Add to this the risk of no harvest to look forward to and the potential consequences are awful.' Without a harvest, the most vulnerable will starve.

More at Daily Mail Online

North Koreans will 'die from malnutrition within months'

Humanitarian groups fear that the death of Kim Jong-il could worsen North Korea's dire food situation, after the US postponed a decision on potential aid. The country has relied on foreign supplies since the devastating famine of the mid-90s killed hundreds of thousands of people. But the World Food Programme (WFP) and NGOs have warned that the situation is particularly bleak this year.

Aid groups warned that North Koreans would die from malnutrition within months unless donations increased. The WFP launched an emergency programme in April, but has received less than a third of the funding it needs. "We are concerned. Time is of the essence," said Ken Isaacs of Samaritan's Purse, a US-based NGO that helped to distribute the last American food aid in North Korea, almost three years ago.

David Austin of Mercy Corps, who visited flood-hit regions in September, warned: "The longer you delay this decision, the more suffering there's going to be." He said it would take six weeks to three months to set up new deliveries, and warned that based on current conditions, people's food rations would be cut "quite substantially" by April. "As that goes on and on, you'll see the effects of stunting in people's growth and their development. You'll see children dying," he said.

The Guardian

World War II: The Holocaust

One of the most horrific terms in history was used by Nazi Germany to designate human beings whose lives were unimportant, or those who should be killed outright: Lebensunwertes Leben, or "life unworthy of life". First applied to the mentally impaired, later to the "racially inferior", or "sexually deviant", or merely "enemies of the state" both internal and external. From very early in the war, part of Nazi policy was to murder civilians en masse, especially targeting Jews -- which later in the war became Hitler's "final solution", the complete extermination of the Jews. Beginning with Einsatzgruppen death squads in the East, killing some 1,000,000 people in numerous massacres, later in concentration camps where prisoners were actively denied proper food and health care, and ending with the construction of extermination camps -- government facilities whose entire purpose was the systematic murder and disposal of massive numbers of people.

Lt. Col. Ed Seiller of Louisville, Kentucky, stands amid a pile of Holocaust victims as he speaks to 200 German civilians who were forced to see the grim conditions at the Landsberg concentration camp, on May 15, 1945.

Impressive pictures on In Focus by The Atlantic

Somalia famine has killed '29,000 children'

Claim by US officials follows declaration of three new famine zones by UN and warning that more areas are vulnerable. US officials say that the famine in Somalia has killed more than 29,000 children in the last 90 days.

Separately, the UN has declared that three new regions in Somalia are famine zones, making a total of five regions affected by famine thus far in the Horn of Africa country. The UN had said last month two regions were suffering from famine.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the UN's food arm, has said that famine is likely to spread across all regions of Somalia's south in the next four to six weeks.

Famine, as defined by the UN, refers to situations when at least 20 per cent of households face food shortages so severe that they are unable to cope with it and more than two people out of 10 000 people die daily. Additionally, famine conditions are likely to persist until December, FAO said. Across Somalia, 3.7 million people are in crisis out of a population of 7.5 million, the UN says.

Al Jazeera