Somalia famine beyond crisis

Humanitarian agencies have reached almost two million people in Somalia with humanitarian assistance as of February 2022, but a critical gap in donor funding means they cannot sustain and scale up their support to meet the growing needs. If this gap is not urgently addressed, it will contribute to worse outcomes with a real risk of widespread famine. The last time such a humanitarian tragedy struck Somalia was in 2011 when famine conditions killed a quarter of a million people.

"The lives of children are at risk. If the funding gap is not met, malnutrition rates will continue to soar, and children may face severe malnutrition and preventable diseases. Losing children to starvation would be a loss for humanity,” said Angela Kearney, UNICEF Somalia Representative.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) are calling for an immediate injection of funds to enable a scale-up of life-saving assistance in Somalia.

With current funding shortfalls, bleak rainfall forecasts, and rising food prices globally, the agencies are calling for immediate funding to scale up humanitarian assistance across the hardest-hit parts of the country.

_{Source and Credit: UN, UNICEF}