Britain Calls for urgent response to famine in Somalia

The death toll in famine-hit Somalia will escalate unless urgent action is taken, the first British minister to visit war-torn Mogadishu in over 18 years said on Wednesday. "The stark fact is that in southern Somalia the situation is deteriorating by the day," Andrew Mitchell, Britain''s international development secretary, said in Nairobi following a visit to Mogadishu,reported AFP. Up to 400,000 children are at risk of death through starvation if urgent action is not taken now, he added, announcing a $41 million (29 million euro) funding boost. Without an "urgent response" the crisis could become as bad as Somalia''s 1991-2 famine, when over 200,000 people lost their lives, warned Mitchell, who visited feeding centres and camps for those fleeing extreme drought. "This is a race against time," he warned.