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5 March 2023. Somalia is currently experiencing the longest and most severe drought in recent history with about 6.5 million people in need of urgent and extremely high humanitarian lifesaving assistance due to the impact of five consecutive seasons of rains failure with the sixth rainfall predicted to be below-average in March and April.
What is worse, famine is projected in some parts of the country between April and June 2023, if humanitarian assistance is not delivered immediately, and especially to reach the most vulnerable populations. The most affected populations are in Baidoa and Burhakaba districts of Bay Region and among internally displaced people (IDP) in Mogadishu.
Furthermore, it is estimated 1.8 million children under the age of five, nearly half of the country’s under-five population, will likely suffer acute malnutrition as food security conditions deteriorate. This is gravely concerning, given that in 2022 more than 1,000 children died in nutrition centres across Somalia. The figures are likely to be higher as there are many who never made to the nutrition centres.
Conflict is worsening the humanitarian situation, making it harder for humanitarian agencies to access the populations in most need of assistance. Most recently, at least 185,000 people have been displaced due to the fighting in Laas Anood. These populations also require urgent humanitarian assistance. “Millions of people are at risk. There is no time to wait. Without urgently and immediately scaling up humanitarian assistance, hunger-related deaths are likely to be as high as those of the 2011-12 famine in Somalia, when 260,000 people died – half of them children," Nimo Hassan, the Director of Somali NGO Consortium warned.
Women and girls face increased risks of gender-based violence (GBV) due to multiple displacements, overcrowded and poorly lit shelters and toilets in camps, and the need to travel long distances to fetch water and firewood. Child marriage has become a harmful coping mechanism for families struggling with drought-induced poverty. “The scale of this crisis is terrible and the suffering of millions unimaginable. Women and girls are most at risk.
We are morally obliged to do more to protect the most vulnerable. Somalia cannot be forgotten at this most critical time,” said Paul Healy, the Country Director of Trocaire.
For more information contact:
Abdullahi Noor, Advocacy & Communications Specialist - Somali NGO Consortium.
Mobile: +252 610 797 342 Email: advocacy@somaliangoconstortium.org
Abdisamad Ali, Membership & Communications Officer - Somali NGO Consortium.
Mobile: +252 634442928 Email: comms@somaliangoconstortium.org