Crisis in Somalia growing worse

MOGADISHU, Somalia, July 22 (UPI) -- Hundreds of thousands of people are on the verge of starvation in Somalia, aid officials say.

"It's not one thing or another that has gone wrong," said Patrick Webb, a food security expert with the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. "This represents catastrophic failure of all the systems that people rely on to survive."

Getting food to the people of Somalia is a huge challenge in what is widely considered a failed state by social and economic indicators, CNN reported Friday.

"We are faced with hundreds of thousands of people on the verge of starvation but there is no central authority we can negotiate with to get access to those people," said Joel Charny, vice president for humanitarian policy and practice at InterAction, an alliance of U.S. aid agencies.

Starving Somalians are returning to the capital of Mogadishu, which they fled because of war.

Hungry and sick Somalis are walking from their homes in famine-struck southern areas to the city in search of food.

A major drought killed their crops and animals and they have nothing left, officials said.

The United Nations refugee agency has called the arrival of refugees an "unprecedented influx" into the city.

World Food Program Executive Director Josette Sheeran spoke of the need to get food supplies into southern Somalia, where the al-Qaida-linked group al-Shabaab recently lifted a ban on food agencies.

Sheeran said the WFP would increase its humanitarian efforts and begin lifting food to the 2.2 million people in the south.