ACF braves Somalia’s lawless south

Working to combat malnutrition in more than 40 countries, ACF has seen its share of crises. Yet rarely have relief agencies been confronted with a calamity as grave as that caused by the drought that struck the Horn of Africa this year, imperilling an estimated 13m people…

Numerous relief agencies have raised the alarm over the Somali hunger crisis and sought to assist refugees in Kenya and other neighbouring countries…ACF has been working in Somalia since 1992, the year before a US-led military incursion targeting warlords in Mogadishu, the capital, ended with the deaths of 18 American soldiers and a Malaysian when militiamen shot down two Black Hawk helicopters. Today the charity has 154 local staff in the country. They provided emergency nutrition to 15,000 people between January and August and reached hundreds of thousands more with clean water, health programmes and food distributions.