Araweelo News Network

Drought and hunger are afflicting Somalia, but no one knows because the media is not talking about it — that’s the message that propelled the hashtag #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia to the top of Twitter’s global trends Wednesday night.

Thanks to several celebrity tweets, the call to spread awareness of the need for aid in Somalia and neighboring countries in East Africa is top of mind (or at least fingers) for those passing word on to their followers on social media.

Ben Stiller recorded a video explaining the importance of the hashtag, started by French Snapchat star Jerome Jarre, who appeared in “Zoolander 2” alongside the actor in 2016.

“I know there’s so much going on in the world so it’s kind of hard to focus on stuff that’s going on outside of our own experience,” Stiller said in the video.

Jarre had posted his own video (see below) on Wednesday in French with English subtitles, explaining that a volunteer in Somalia had called him to ask for his help, saying they had just been watching a 6-year-old girl dying from dehydration.

Since Turkish Airlines flies to Somalia, the hope is to put enough social media pressure on the airline to get it to send a plane full of food and water to the country. Where to get that food and water? Jarre proposed that companies could make donations to be loaded onto the plane.

“So maybe I am going to sound crazy now, but what if we could find an airplane?” Jarre, 26, said in the video, which has been retweeted 37,000 times. “And we filled it with food and water and sent it to Somalia?”
Other social media users shared similar videos urging followers to spread the word and encourage Turkish Airlines, the only commercial air carrier that flies to Somalia, to donate a plane.

According to the United Nations, the world is facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the establishment of the global organization in 1945, with over 20 million people on the brink of starvation.

While the UN estimates that 4.4 billion dollars is necessary by the end of March to prevent catastrophe in east Africa, only 90 million dollars has been raised.

The lives of about 1.4 million children are threatened by malnutrition in the region, UNICEF warned.

Turkey is the second largest humanitarian assistance donor to Somalia, and has provided over $121.9 million since 2011 through the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), the Turkish Red Crescent and the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).