Donations sought to help the starving in Somalia

By Aida Ahmed

Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011 | 7:52 p.m.

At a Friday afternoon prayer gathering, Imam Aslam Abdullah tells his congregation that it is their responsibility as Muslims to give to charity.

“Remember to keep Somalia in your prayers. There are people that are dying of hunger,” he said.

Nearing the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting in the Islamic religion, members of the Islamic Society of Nevada Mosque gathered for prayer and later to break their daily fast.

The Imam reminded the crowd that giving to the poor is something they must do, even if it means cutting back on the things they want.

Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are facing the worst famine brought on by drought in decades. The United Nations Children’s Fund reports almost 10 million people are at a high risk of starvation.

Abdullah and Somali members of the Las Vegas community refuse to sit idle and watch.

Abdullah, who has done research on the drought in the Horn of Africa, reached out to Maimuna Gelle and Layla Belloni, two Somali women organizing a local effort to help the starving in Somalia.

“We want to collect at least 700 boxes that contain food items,” said Gelle, an aspiring doctor who left Somalia to go to medical school in Pakistan. “Each one costs around $60. Each box will go to one family and it will help them for one month.”

Coordinated by the Somali Health Care Foundation in Minnesota, mosques across the U.S. are being asked to collect food and money to ease the famine.

The group hopes Las Vegans will donate bottled water and dry goods such as rice, flour, baby formula and sugar to the mosque. It wants to ship 800 boxes to Somalia at the end of the month.

Belloni said she can only imagine what the people in her native country are going though.

“I love my country a lot, but we left everything because of the war,” Belloni said. “They killed my father and my brother. They were fighting, raping, and killing everybody.”

“They don’t have shelter; they don’t have food,” she said. “When they try to flee, they are raped on the borders of neighboring countries.”

Donations can be dropped off at the Islamic Society of Nevada Mosque at 4730 E. Desert Inn Road.

Acceptable dry goods include Enfamil and Similac baby formulas, beans, spices, oatmeal, dry milk and cereal. Other items in need include blankets, sleeping bags, mosquito repellent, spoons and food containers.

So far, the group has raised about $700. Abdullah plans to ship the items to Somalia the weekend of Aug. 26.

“It is your responsibility to help,” Abdullah said to an assembly of Muslims at the afternoon prayer. “Even if it means we eat only half of our meals to ensure that the people over there are fed.”