Hawa Mohamed Isack at a water distribution point at Muuri camp
(Picture: Yasuyoshi Chiba/ Getty Images)The UN has warned that “famine is at the door” in Somalia, as nearly seven million people face extreme hunger caused by the country’s worst drought in 40 years.
Four failed rainy seasons have destroyed food security across the country and forecasts predict that this cycle of rain is unlikely to bring the moisture needed to replenish farms and grazing land.
There have been harrowing reports of hungry families having to bury loved ones on the side of the road as they journey for days, and sometimes weeks, in search of aid.
More than 1 million people have been forced to flee to crowded informal camps, not far from where al Qaeda-linked terror group Al-Shabaab is fighting to maintain its territory.
At least 41 per cent of Somalia’s nearly 16 million people will face acute food insecurity between now and December, according to the latest UN figures.
More than half of children aged under five in Somalia are facing acute malnutrition, and many are already dying in growing numbers. On Monday, the BBC reported on the death of a 2-year-old boy in the border town of Dolow who had been suffering from malnutrition.
A famine in 2011 killed nearly 260,000 people in Somalia, half of whom were children under the age of five. The crisis was also caused by a severe drought.
While there has been no official declaration of famine, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said last week: “I have no doubt that we are seeing famine on our watch in Somalia.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera, he decried the injustice of the climate crisis-induced disaster. “Nobody in Somalia is responsible for the catastrophe – this fourth failed rainy season, this fifth and sixth to come.”
Famine declarations are only made under extreme conditions: when a full third of a region’s children are severely malnourished, a fifth of the population has no access at all to food and there are two hunger-related deaths per 10,000 people each day.
The only two famines ever declared were in South Sudan in 2017 and Somalia in July 2011.
What has caused the drought in Somalia?
The last four rainy seasons in Somalia have failed to materialise and the fifth is very likely to underperform as well.
This means that crops can’t grow to their full potential, if at all in some areas. The camel, goat and cattle herds of Somali farmers don’t have enough vegetation to eat or enough accessible water to drink – millions of livestock have already perished.
Climate change underpins this continued lack of rainfall. Somalia is ranked second most vulnerable country (after Niger) to the adverse impacts of climate change, which will likely cause the country to experience further drought, affecting more land area, with fewer regular rainy seasons.
“Now we have a weather pattern [in Somalia] that is increasingly erratic, with less rain in the last decade, and flooding when there is rain,” Mohamed Abdi, Norwegian Refugee Council’s Somalia country director told Time magazine in August. “And climate change means the situation is only going to get worse.”
The outlook for 2023 remains bleak. According to the Climate Hazards Center, “crop harvests in Kenya, Somalia, and southern Ethiopia have been and will remain very poor, more than nine million livestock have perished [and] water resources have become extremely scarce.”
What has the global response been?
There is growing evidence that a distracted world has been slow to recognise the scale of the catastrophe now unfolding in Somalia.
The Somalia government issued a Drought Declaration in April, however, humanitarian aid pledges from donor countries have not translated into significant funding and a scale-up of aid to date.
New data shows less than half the humanitarian funding required to respond to the drought is currently in place.
The UK, for instance, provided more than £20 million in humanitarian assistance during Somalia’s last drought in 2017. This year it is spending less than a quarter of that.
Last week the presidential envoy for Somalia’s drought response said the UK has lost its leadership role in the world and is letting down its allies.
Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame told the Guardian that Britain used to be second only to the US as a key player in international forums and advocacy, but has since slipped, saying that countries such as Somalia were being left without support to face “the new climate reality”.
Food prices are also at a record high in Somalia, so the amounts of money that have been donated do not go as far as they did in the past.
How can you donate?
Save the Children, Unicef, the British Red Cross and Muslim Hands UK are among many charities launching emergency donation appeals to help the crisis in Somalia.
They are offering mobile health teams, providing financial support to buy food and other essential items, and providing clean water and immunisations to prevent the spread of disease.
Below are some ways to donate:
