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Two regions of Somalia will suffer from famine between October and December this year, the United Nations revealed. The crisis could affect parts of the south of the African country and would be worse than those of 2010 and 2011, due to four failed rainy seasons and decades of conflict. The head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Martin Griffiths, issued “one last warning” in the face of the critical situation.
In a press conference from the capital Mogadishu, Martin Griffiths warned that “hunger is knocking at the door. Today is one last warning. The Somalia Food and Nutrition Analysis Report shows concrete indications that a famine will occur in two areas of the Bay region (…) between October and December of this year.”
According to the official, two districts in the south of the country, Baidoa and Buurhakaba, will be affected. For famine to be declared in a region, at least 20% of the population must be in a disaster situation.
The OCHA chief, who arrived in Somalia last Thursday, visited IDP camps in Baidoa and said he was “deeply shocked by the level of pain and suffering that so many Somalis are enduring.”
The official was also in Banadir, where he met medical staff working to save the lives of emaciated children whose number has increased by 50% in a matter of weeks, doctors said.
The crisis could be worse than that of 2011, when famine reached parts of Somalia and killed 260,000 people, more than half of them children under the age of six.
According to the UN, 7.8 million people – almost half the population – are affected by the current drought and 213,000 are at serious risk of starvation.
Somalia suffers worst drought in 40 years
According to UN experts, Somalia and its neighbors in the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia and Kenya, are suffering the worst drought in 40 years, which has wiped out livestock and crops, which had already been devastated by a locust invasion between 2019 and 2021.
In addition, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the region is on track for a fifth straight unsuccessful rainy season.
Families are not only dying of hunger, but also of diseases such as cholera and measles due to lack of clean water and sanitation. More than half of the population lives below the poverty line.
Humanitarian agencies have been sounding the alarm for months about the deteriorating situation and are asking for more resources for their life-saving operations. Yet of the $131.4 million Somalia urgently needs to save lives and livelihoods, only 46% is funded.
A situation aggravated by the civil war and the war in Ukraine
Somalia is considered one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and is particularly ill-prepared to deal with the crisis.
The country has suffered a civil war since 1991 with clashes between clans, Islamic extremists and the federal government. The deadly insurgency by the radical Islamist group Al Shabab against the fragile administration has severely limited humanitarian access to many areas.
The war in Ukraine has also made the population even more vulnerable to the risk of famine, as it suffers from the increase in the prices of certain foods and from the complicated export of Ukrainian grain.
After a long blockade of Ukrainian ports, grains finally returned to being shipped by sea thanks to an agreement with Russia, under the auspices of the UN. Somalia buys more than 70% of its wheat from Ukraine.
With Reuters, AFP and EFE
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