FOOD CRISIS | Between October 2010 and April 2012 The food crisis in Somalia killed 258,000 people, half of them children

Approximately 258,000 Somalis starved to death between October 2010 and April 2012 during the severe food crisis that resulted in six months of famine in the African country, according to a UN report released on Thursday. "The severe hunger and food insecurity in Somalia has killed about 258,000 people between October 2010 and April 2012, including 133,000 children under five years," according to the report prepared jointly by FAO, the United Nations Organization Agriculture and Alimentation, and Hunger Alert Network (Fews-Net), funded by the United States. According to this "scientific evaluation" of the balance of the food crisis, the 4.6% of the total population and 10% of children under five died in southern and central Somalia. In regions of the lower Shabelle, Mogadishu and Bay, in the south of the country in the Horn of Africa, the hardest hit, the food crisis has caused the death of 18, 17 and 13%, respectively, of children under five. In each of the months of May-August, 2011, famine caused 30,000 deaths, according to the study. "These figures add up to 290,000 deaths, according to the benchmark adopted gotten over that period. A figure that includes war-related deaths in Somalia, representing a mortality rate that is twice the average of sub-Saharan Africa. This balance exceeds the famine of 1992, which killed 220,000 people in twelve months although "that famine was considered more serious as it involved the death of a greater percentage of the population." The famine in Somalia, between mid-2011 and early 2012, affecting 4 million people, half of the Somali population. The food crisis had its causes in a severe drought that affected the entire region known as the Horn of Africa, Somalia is compounded by living in a state of permanent war and chaos since 1991, when he was ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. The election last September, the Hassan Sheikh Mohamed as the new president of Somalia by the new Somali parliament for a term of four years, ending the political transition began in 2004 with support from the UN, and gives hope to who opt for stabilization of the country. Somalia has been for 22 years without a moderately effective government and into the hands of Islamist militias, warlords who serve the interests of a particular clan and armed gangs. Al Shabab, which in February 2012 formally announced his joining the terrorist network Al Qaeda, combat since 2006 (although not in its current form) the Somali government and allied troops in order to establish a Muslim state in Wahhabi cutting the area.