6B: My Choice

I chose to do another blog about an article I read based on the challenges of malnutrition. I believe that reading personal stories of people who have suffered from starvation is the best way to understand  my topic.  Readers can put themselves in others shoes and see the experience at a different angle rather than I blogging about facts.

SOMALIA: Halima Omar
July, 2011

In Somalia's Lower Shebelle Region a huge drought occurred and the Halima Omar family who was once considered very wealthy and powerful, owning 100 heads of cattle, now was completely torn apart and the family had been displaced. Omar, who was thirty years old had to bury four of her own children do to the lack of income and availability of food. "We were very comfortable when we had our animals. We were one of the better-off families in Da'ara. But this changed when we lost our last cow five months ago." This family based their lives off of their cattle and when the economy started to become weak and they couldn't sell any of their herd and had nothing. "The cows were all we had. My husband went looking for food every day in the bush but there was not much to hunt. Some days, he will come with enough from the bush to eat for one meal; other days we will go hungry. We went hungry more days than we ate. My children started dying slowly." Many families were experiencing this but even worse. This family was considered healthy and well off at the beginning so when their children started dying, many others had already lost their children.


Two of her children had survived through the suffering and so the family decided to make a change.  "We finally left the village two weeks ago to try to save the last two. Now we are in this camp in Kurtunwarey with many other families like us. I am breastfeeding both of my children because I have nothing else." This was the main option that most of the families decided was the best.  The camp however did not provide food so the struggling of surviving had not changed.  Omar described the camp as very helpful at the beginning while everyone gives their condolence's to each other but there were too many of them to make it worth it.  There was many kids that were weak and sick and every day was a struggle.  The article ended with a quote "Maybe this is our fate or maybe a miracle will happen and we will all be saved from this nightmare."

I chose this article because it was a personal story that let the readers get an inside look on the way life really is when having only one to none meals a day.  The purpose of this article was to gain more information as to why kids are dying from starvation.  Droughts can occur anywhere are are extremely hapless so I think that this was a good example of that this issue is worldly and something to take serious.  This article was not intended for donating money or volunteering for an organization, it was to make readers more aware of what happens in every day life for some families.  The question that still remains in my head though is why did people go to this camp and how did it benefit them?

"SOMALIA: Halima Omar, "I Watched Four of My Children Die of Hunger"" IRINnews. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.