Supermodel Iman Condemns International Community Over Somalia Famine
The Somali-born supermodel Iman is serving as a voice for the famine stricken people of her native Somalia.
The supermodel is using her celebrity power to advocate for the people of Somalia and to push for decisive action to be made by the international community to salvage the situation in the drought-stricken country.
The 56-year-old model made appearance on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 show on Tuesday evening to discuss the famine situation in Somalia. She talked about her youth in Somalia arguing that she “never, ever went to bed hungry.”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Iman called the famine "heartbreaking" and expressed that her main fear about the famine is really about the millions of children that are at risk of death and malnutrition.
She continued to discuss her dismay with the lack of action by the international community by discussing with Anderson Cooper her experience making a documentary during the last Somalia famine in 1992.
Iman argued that back in the 1992 famine, which was notably less severe, the international community and NGO’s were arguing for an early famine warning system to be put in place as a safety net. However, now that the system has been put in place, it was not used to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe we are seeing today across the drought-stricken Somalia.
She argued, “By the time this (famine) was declared it was already a catastrophe. What I really would like to see is the United Nations, the international community, the Arab world, to step up and really start thinking about the need of food because that is the urgency of it now.”
She continued with, “More importantly regardless of the conflict and regardless of the political issue that is happening in Somalia, what’s happening for a fact, for a fact, that it is a humanitarian catastrophe and this famine will be remembered as a famine that has destroyed generations of children.”
Iman concluded her interview with this powerful statement: “What I want people to understand that this is a catastrophe that was preventable but it is not salvageable.”
