Somalians are our flesh and blood

They are only children, but it is difficult to recognise the innocence usually associated with childhood. Innocence has long fled the eyes of Somalia's children, replaced by fear and hunger.

It is difficult to imagine that they ever laughed with the delight of a free and fed child: Somalia's children have become the symbol of a nation unable to feed its young.

They are also the symbol of a continent incapable of pulling itself together, of moving in the same direction - from political independence to economic autonomy.

Our continent's individual states might have been freed in the last century from their former colonial masters, but Africa has a long road to travel before it sheds the politics of the big men that leave innocent lives destroyed.

The United Nations - that global body of Western conspiracy, power and arrogance so despised by our continent's big men - has declared Somalia a country stricken by famine. It now formally qualifies for financial and food aid from the UN.

There is a technical definition for famine: it is the state in which child malnutrition is above 30%, at least two in 10000 people die per day, and there is no access to food and water for some people.

Although the whole of Somalia might be suffering, technically only two regions presently qualify for famine status - Bakool and Lower Shabelle.

But the crisis is rapidly spreading. Not only has this catastrophe left millions of people in Somalia unsettled, it has affected the country's neighbours.

The UN - recently criticised by former president Thabo Mbeki for being too Western in its outlook - estimates that more than $2.5-billion (R16.9-billion) is needed to deal with the crisis.

The African Union, scheduled to meet, says its member states have pledged $500-million. South Africa recently announced that it will contribute R1-million.

The signs warning that Somalia was heading for a disaster were flashing long before the first image of a malnourished child appeared on a television screen, yet somehow the continent failed to notice.

And so we have famine - something that was so last century when Ethiopia's starving children were held aloft by singer Bob Geldof while Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie composed We Are The World after about one million people died in the country's famine from 1984 to 1985.

The UN has said this will be no short crisis and about 15 million people might need "life-saving assistance".

And while we wait for the AU to act as an institution that not only intervenes in military crises like Libya and the Ivory Coast, the death march of Somalia's women and children will continue.

Those children and mothers are ours, too - however many thousands of kilometres away. As people of this continent, we share a common destiny.