Kevin Carter and African famine

Somalia famine killed 260,000 people. The crisis was caused by a severe drought, worsened by conflict between rival groups fighting for power. 

Half of them were children under the age of five. 

The number of deaths was higher than the estimated 220,000 people who died during the 1992 famine.  (bbc.co.uk, 2 may 2013)

Oxfam report says rich donor nations waited until the crisis was in full swing. (http://abcnews.go.com)

It reminds the conscience of a photojournalist Kevin Carter, who covered Sudan in the last African famine of 1992, which cost him his dear life..unfortunately.

Somalia famine in 2010-12 'worst in past 25 years.
Nearly 260,000 people died in parts of Somalia between October 2010 and April 2012, including 133,000 children (Liz Ford guardian.co.uk,  Thursday 2 May 2013 13.29 BST)

A Western official briefed on the new report — the most authoritative to date — told AP that it says 260,000 people died, and that half the victims were 5 and under.(http://abcnews.go.com)

The study covered all of southern and central Somalia,
the areas most affected by famine and food insecurity
between 2010 and 2011. Photograph: Ho/Reuters

A report last year by the aid groups Oxfam and Save the Children found that rich donor nations waited until the crisis was in full swing before donating a substantial amount of money. The report also said aid agencies were slow to respond.(http://abcnews.go.com)

*Kevin Carter (13 September 1960 – 27 July 1994):

In March 1993, while on a trip to Sudan, Carter was preparing to photograph a starving toddler trying to reach a feeding center when a hooded vulture landed nearby. Carter reported taking the picture, because it was his "job title", and leaving. He came under criticism for failing to help the boy, Kong Nyong:

The St. Petersburg Times in Florida said this of Carter: "The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of him suffering, might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene."

Carter's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph

Sold to the New York Times, the photograph first appeared on 26 March 1993 and was carried in many other newspapers around the world. Hundreds of people contacted the Times to ask the fate of the boy. The paper reported that it was unknown whether he had managed to reach the feeding center. In 1994, the photograph won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography.

Kevin Carter's sensitivity: 

On 27 July 1994 Carter drove to the Braamfontein Spruit river, near the Field and Study Centre, an area where he used to play as a child, and took his own life by taping one end of a hose to his pickup truck’s exhaust pipe and running the other end to the passenger-side window. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning, aged 33. Portions of Carter's suicide note read: "I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners ... I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky."

*Kevin Carter detail thankfully shared from wikipedia.org