Status: 05.09.2022 2:03 p.m
Somalia is currently battling an historic drought. Millions of people in the country on the Horn of Africa already do not have enough to eat. The UN is therefore expecting a famine in the near future.
The UN has warned of an imminent humanitarian emergency in Somalia. The country on the Horn of Africa, which is suffering from a historic drought, is on the brink of famine, said UN coordinator Martin Griffiths in the Somali capital Mogadishu. “This is today’s final warning.” The latest data specifically showed that there will be famine in two districts in the south of the country from October to December. The Baidoa and Buurhakaba districts are affected.
The UN coordinator said he was “deeply shocked at the level of pain and suffering endured by so many Somalis.” During his visit to Baidoa, the “epicenter” of the impending catastrophe, he saw “children who were so malnourished that they could hardly speak”. According to the UN, 213,000 people across the country are at risk of starvation.
A formal declaration of famine by the UN is rare. Such a move would require more than a fifth of households to experience extreme food shortages, more than 30 percent of children to be acutely malnourished, and more than two in 10,000 people to die from it every day. Collecting this data is often difficult.
Around 7.8 million people are affected by hunger
Somalia is currently battling its worst drought in 40 years. According to UN estimates from July, the current drought is surpassing previous ones “in terms of duration and severity”. According to the UN, around 7.8 million people – almost half the population – do not have enough to eat. Ethiopia and Kenya are also affected by the drought in the Horn of Africa.
Aid organizations now fear a famine similar to that of 2011, when 260,000 people died. But in view of the large number of humanitarian emergencies – including in Yemen, Afghanistan and Ukraine – their numerous appeals have recently hardly been heard. At the end of June, the organization “Save The Children” warned the international community that it was “moving like a sleepwalker towards a catastrophic famine” in Somalia.
The effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are also hitting Somalia hard, as the country sourced at least 90 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine before the war and is now suffering from shortages and rising prices.