Day: September 5, 2022

MOGADISHU – In Somalia, the United Nation World Food Programme is delivering life-saving assistance to more people than ever before, reaching 3.7 million people with relief and over 300,000 with nutrition support – but famine is now an imminent reality unless immediate and drastic action is taken.

With the country gripped by a devastating drought and forecasts of an unprecedented fifth consecutive failed rainy season, famine is now projected in several districts of the Bay region of Somalia from October to December, unless resources can be secured to sustain and expand the scale-up of humanitarian assistance.

“We know from experience that we cannot wait for a formal declaration of famine to act. Even before we first warned of the risk of famine, we were working to scale up our life-saving support in Somalia as far as resources have allowed. Since April, we have more than doubled the number of people we are supporting with humanitarian assistance, reaching record numbers in Somalia,” said Margot van der Velden, WFP Director of Emergencies, speaking from Mogadishu. ”But the drought crisis is still deteriorating and famine is closer than ever. The world must respond now, while we still have a chance to prevent catastrophe.”

Additional information for journalists:

Famine is now projected between October and December in the Baidoa and Burkhaba districts and displaced populations in Baidoa town of Somalia’s Bay region, unless humanitarian aid is scaled up. The last famine in Somalia, in 2011-12, killed over a quarter of a million people – and while the scale of humanitarian assistance is much larger now than it was then, the scale of need is also much greater.

According to the last official national update, close to half the population of Somalia were facing acute food insecurity in June. The situation has worsened since then, and updated figures are expected in coming days.

The hunger crisis in Somalia is primarily the result of a drought of historic severity. Four consecutive rainy seasons have failed and forecasts for the fifth are poor. This is compounding the impact of other recurrent climate shocks, coupled with conflict and instability that exacerbates hunger and restricts humanitarian access.

Food prices in Somalia were already rising sharply due to drought-induced livestock deaths and poor harvests. They soared even higher following the crisis in Ukraine. In June, the average cost for a household to meet its basic food needs was at its highest in five years.

Without waiting for a declaration of famine, WFP has scaled up humanitarian assistance to unprecedented levels in Somalia, despite the very limited resources available – especially in the early stages of the drought crisis.

In July 2022, WFP reached 3.7 million people in Somalia with life-saving relief assistance – more than double the number in April, when WFP and the UN first warned of the risk of famine, and the most ever reached by WFP in Somalia in a single month. We also reached over 300,000 people with treatment for malnutrition.

We are working to increase this still further in coming months, to reach 4.5 million people with relief and 470,000 with nutrition treatment.

WFP is the largest humanitarian agency in Somalia, with 12 offices across the country providing coverage in every state. We are in ongoing collaboration with United Nations agencies, all levels of government, partners and donors to push assistance still further into the most challenging areas.

WFP’s massive scale-up has largely been made possible thanks to timely support from the United States. But the broader international community must act now to enable us to sustain and expand this scale-up, including in hard-to-reach areas – such as the Bay region, where famine is now projected.

Source: World Food Programme

MOGADISHU, Up to 1.5 million children in Somalia – or one in five – could face deadly forms of malnutrition by October without immediate action, Save the Children said today as the international community issued a final warning about the country being on the brink of famine.

A new UN statement released on Monday said agricultural communities and displaced people in three areas of the Bay region of southwest Somalia, including Baidoa and Burhakaba districts, could face famine between October and December without significant humanitarian assistance reaching those most in need as Somalia faces its worst drought in 40 years. The UN projected up to 1.5 million children could be facing severe acute malnutrition by October.

Save the Children – along with other NGOs and UN agencies – has been alerting donors and governments to the worsening crisis in the Horn of Africa for more than a year, with Somalia crippled by four consecutive failed rainy seasons and forecasts poor for October-December rains. A failed fifth rainy season would be unprecedented.

The projection of famine in the Bay region – where thousands of lives were lost in the last famine in Somalia in 2011 that claimed 260,000 lives, half aged under 5 – is based largely on currently available information that minimal assistance will be distributed in those areas in November and December due to funding constraints.

For months, Save the Children has warned of hospitals being overwhelmed by a surge on severely malnourished children with beds full and wards at breaking point as drought in East Africa decimates people’s ability to raise livestock or grow crops and the war in Ukraine drives up food prices, making staples unaffordable for many dependent on imported grain.

Early warning alerts were initially largely overlooked although a rapid scale-up of humanitarian assistance since the start of 2022 has undoubtedly saved many lives. But these activities have nowhere near reached the scale needed and US$1.5 billion is needed to give vulnerable children and their families the food, healthcare, education and water they need to survive.

Save the Children’s Country Director for Somalia, Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, said:

“We are too late for those children and adults who have already died from hunger – tragic, avoidable, and excruciating deaths. Their deaths not only represent a catastrophe for their families, but demonstrate in most brutal form the growing global apathy for the victims of the climate crisis. We mourn them and we are angry for them.

*“In recent months, international donors have stepped up with critical funding for this crisis. This is exactly what Save the Children and other agencies have been calling for and it is of course very welcome. But today’s analysis shows that even this generosity may have come too late and we need not just immediate funding but rapid long-term planning and system change to stop this from continuing to happen to people who have done absolutely nothing to contribute to hunger or the climate crisis. *

“As well as significant funding for immediate, lifesaving services, donors must continue to invest in early warning and anticipatory action to better manage the risk of hunger crises and mitigate against its impacts before it is too late. Reactive humanitarian funding alone is too slow, unreliable, and costly and ultimately ineffective to tackle the complex crises of today.”

A famine declaration is based on technical decisions around three thresholds – that at least 20% of the population is affected, with about one out of three children being acutely malnourished and two people out of 10,000 are dying daily – as well as a political agreement.

The last official famine to be declared was in parts of South Sudan in 2017.

The latest analysis found that since early 2021, the drought has forced around 260,000 people in the Bay Region to abandon their farms and move to displacement sites in search of food and aid. By July, acute malnutrition levels among children under five had reached 24.9% among rural populations and 28.6% among newly displaced children.

This again highlighted that children in the worst affected parts of Somalia are dying now, from hunger, malnutrition, or diseases brought on through starvation and malnutrition. Being malnourished makes children, particularly infants, much more susceptible to disease and illnesses such as dysentery, diarrhoea, cholera, malaria and pneumonia.

Without enough nutritious food to eat or the ability to absorb the right nutrients due to illness, children under five are at high risk of acute malnutrition that can lead to death – or if a child survives, can cause stunting, and impede mental and physical development longer term.

Save the Children has worked in Somalia since 1951 and is a national and international leader in humanitarian and development programming in health, nutrition, education, child protection and child rights governance.

This year, Save the Children has reached more than 24,000 people through cash programming and treated more than 50,000 children for malnutrition. We are currently providing water trucking to more than 25,000 households and unconditional cash provisions to nearly 11,000 households in the worst-affected areas.

Source: Save the Children

As UN relief chief Martin Griffiths warned of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe on Monday, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it is delivering more food aid to Somalia than ever before.

WFP noted that, despite so far reaching an unprecedented 3.7 million people with relief and over 300,000 with nutrition support, famine is an imminent reality unless drastic action is immediately taken. This is more than double the number of people assisted by the agency in April, and WFP is aiming to reach 4.5 million in the coming months.

The last famine in Somalia, in 2011-12, killed over a quarter of a million people – and while the scale of humanitarian assistance is much larger now than it was then, the scale of need is also much greater; the country is in the grip of a devastating drought, and is predicted to suffer a fifth consecutive failed rainy season.

Somalia is also reeling from conflict and instability, which are worsening hunger, and restricting the supply of aid to those who need it. These conditions are expected to last through to at least March 2023.

Food prices in Somalia were already rising sharply due to drought-induced livestock deaths and poor harvests; they soared even higher following the crisis in Ukraine. In June, the average cost for a household to meet its basic food needs was at its highest in five years.

Famine is now projected in several districts of the Bay region of Somalia from October to December, unless resources can be secured to sustain and expand the scale-up of humanitarian assistance.

‘Shocked to my core’

“I have been shocked to my core these past few days by the level of pain and suffering we see so many Somalis enduring,” Martin Griffiths said to journalists on Monday.

The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, was speaking from the capital, Mogadishu, after visiting some of the worst affected regions. “Famine is at the door,” he said, “and today we are receiving a final warning.”

Mr. Griffiths described Baidoa as the “epicentre of the humanitarian crisis”, where children are so malnourished that they can barely speak, and said that in Banadir, not far from Mogadishu, medical teams are struggling to keep up with the rush of emaciated children who seek treatment.

“None of the children that I saw at the stabilization centre in Banadir hospital could smile” recalled Mr. Griffiths. “Very few could cry. And as we discovered when we left, we had the good fortune to hear a child cry, and we were told that when a child cries, there is a chance of survival. Children who don’t cry are the ones we need to worry about.”

The UN relief chief warned that one and a half million children across Somalia risk acute malnutrition by October. He called for humanitarian organizations to be given immediate and safe access to all people in need, and for more funding to tackle the crisis.

Source: United Nation

United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths has warned that Somalia is on the brink of famine following the worst drought in four decades.

During a news conference in Mogadishu, Griffiths said he has “concrete indications” that famine may occur in the southern Bay region by the end of the year.

Griffiths was in Somalia over the past week to assess the impact of the drought and speak with affected individuals.

His visit to Mogadishu, where most of the drought-affected Somalians live, was followed by a visit to Baidoa, one of two southern towns where many people are at risk of starvation.

During his stay in Baidoa, Griffiths visited camps for internally displaced people and hospitals treating malnourished children.

“I have been shocked to my core these past few days by the level of pain and suffering we see so many Somalis enduring,” he said. “Famine is at the door and today we are sending the final warning.”

Griffiths warned that Baidoa and nearby Burhakaba will be at the epicenter of famine if no action is taken to prevent it.

“The Somalia Food Security and Nutrition analysis report, being released today, shows concrete indications that famine will occur in two areas in the Bay region in South-Central Somalia between October and December of this year,” he said. “The impending famine is similar to the famine that occurred in the country from 2010 to 2011.”

The famine that struck Somalia in 2011 resulted in the deaths of nearly 260,000 Somalis, half of whom were children.

Currently, the situation in the Bay region falls just short of a formal declaration of famine. But thousands there are under threat of starvation.

Overall, the United Nations and Somali government say 7.8 million people nationwide are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance as the drought drags on and the food situation gets worse.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has contributed to the crisis in Somalia, which is suffering from a shortage of humanitarian aid as international donors focus on Europe.

Somalia received at least 90% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine before the war and has been hit hard by scarcity and the sharp rise in food prices.

Source: Voice of America

Beledwayne Somali National Army (SNA) carried out an operation in several villages in Hiiraan province of HirShabelle regional state.

The military targeted Ceemooy, Dhagax-yaalle, Kilad-gubadleey iyo Ceelka-dabyoole areas which about 20 KM from Buulo-Burde district.

According to sources spoke to SONNA, forces who raided after intelligence information destroyed boats used by militants to cross Shabelle river.

“No casualties sustained our brave and patriots soldiers. But the demolish of the boats is a strategic blow to the terrorist group,” added the sources.

Source: Somali National News Agency

A strong earthquake shook part of southwestern China on Monday afternoon. It wasn’t immediately clear if there was damage.

The 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted Luding county in Sichuan province at 12:52 p.m., Xinhua news agency reported.

The 6.6 magnitude earthquake was centered at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Preliminary measurements by different agencies often differ slightly.

Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage. Sichuan is regularly hit by earthquakes. Two earthquakes in June killed at least four people.

China’s deadliest earthquake in recent years was a 7.9 magnitude quake in 2008 that killed nearly 90,000 people in Sichuan.

Source: Somali National News Agency

SONNA – The Gor Gor commandos of the Somali National Army (SNA) have conducted an operation to destroy the Al-Shabab hideouts in the Lower Shabelle region.

The Gor Gor commandos killed around 14 militia members of the Al-Shabab and the leader of Al-Shabaab in charge of the of Barire area in Tooratorow.

The army succeeded in destroying all the hideouts of the Al-Shabaab in the areas Reydaabley of Rayaqle.

Source: Somali National News Agency

Mogadishu, (SONNA) – The Prime Minister of the Federal Government of Somalia, H. E, Hamza Abdi Barre and the National Drought Emergency Committee had a meeting with Somali businessmen this afternoon.

They discussed how to speed up the drought relief work, the government presented the work done and the aid distributed since the appointment of the National Committee on August 17.

The Minister of Interior and Reconciliation Ahmed Moallim Fiqi said that on August 23 a donation of 26 tons of food was sent to the towns of Beledweyne and Buulo Burde.

Also, on August 25, the government awarded the community of Mahaas district a sum of $75,000 intended to repair the water wells in the district.

On 4 September a donation of 20 tons of food was sent to the cities of Baidoa and Hudur. The Minister said that a series of meetings related to drought relief and awareness programs were held.

The businessmen who spoke at the meeting also said that they are ready to participate in the organization of the society and the financial side to do something for the people who are suffering.

PM Hamza spoke at the meeting and said that the government will help the Somali people, they will continue to focus on all the areas that have been affected by the drought so that something can be done quickly for the poor people.

Source: Somali National News Agency