New York Times
13 August 2017
By NURUDDIN FARAH
Mogadishu, Somalia
— As I waited for my ride to collect me from the Mogadishu airport, an officer
told me an apocryphal tale: A starving goat, blind from hunger, mistook a baby
wrapped in a green cloth for grass and bit off a mouthful of emaciated flesh
from the baby’s upper arm. The baby’s anguished cry brought the mother to her
knees and she wept in prayer. The next day, a friend I met in Mogadishu
repeated a variation of the same tale.
I saw the story as
encapsulating much of what everyone needs to know about the goat-eats-baby
severity of the current famine in the Somali Peninsula, with more than six
million affected, crops wasting away, livestock dead or dying, water and foods
scarce. […]