UN calls for urgent efforts to avert famine in Somalia

A senior UN relief official in Somalia on Thursday called on international community to scale up humanitarian assistance to avert famine in the country where more than 6.2 million people face acute food insecurity.

Peter de Clercq, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia warned that unless a massive and urgent scale-up of humanitarian assistance takes place in the coming weeks, famine could soon be a reality in some of the worst drought-affected areas in Somalia.

"If we do not scale up the drought response immediately, it will cost lives, further destroy livelihoods, and could undermine the pursuit of key State-building and peace-building initiatives," he said during the launch of the latest food security and nutrition data in Mogadishu.

"A drought, even one this severe, does not automatically have to mean catastrophe if we can respond early enough with timely support from the international community," said Clercq.

The Horn of Africa nation is in the grip of an intense drought, induced by two consecutive seasons of poor rainfall.

In the worst affected areas, inadequate rainfall and lack of water has wiped out crops and killed livestock, while communities are being forced to sell their assets, and borrow food and money to survive.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-managed Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), the number of people in need of assistance has increased from 5 million in September to over 6.2 million now, more than half of the country's population.

This includes a drastic increase in the number of people in "crisis" and "emergency" from 1.1 million six months ago to a projected 3 million between February and June.

The situation for children is especially grave. Some 363,000 acutely malnourished children are in need of critical nutrition support, including life-saving treatment for more than 71,000 severely malnourished children.

"This is the time to act to prevent another famine in Somalia. Building on the response to drought in 2016, we need to rapidly step up the humanitarian response to effectively respond to the extensive needs and avert a famine," said Clercq.

The levels of suffering in the country, triggered by protracted conflict, seasonal shocks and disease outbreaks, are typically hard to bear, but the impact of this drought represents a threat of a different scale and magnitude.

Somalia experienced the worst famine of the 21st century in 2011, affecting an estimated four million people, three-quarters of a million of whom faced famine conditions. The famine resulted in the deaths of more than a quarter a million. Endit