The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years, and experts say the region is bracing for its fifth dry season on record.
Famine threatens to set in in parts of Somalia between October and December, the United Nations warns, as the drought worsens and food prices soar worldwide.
“Famine is just around the corner. Today we issue a final warning,” said the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths during a press conference in Mogadishu, clarifying that famine will hit areas of south-central Somalia in the fall, according to the agency’s analysis.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing the worst drought in the last 40 years and experts say the region is preparing to face its fifth rainless rainy season on record.
Martin Griffiths arrived in Somalia on Thursday and said he was “deeply shocked by the level of suffering and suffering that so many Somalis are going through”.
About 7.8 million people, almost half of the population, are affected by the historic drought. 213,000 are at high risk of starvation, according to UN figures.
One million Somalis were displaced during 2021 from their homes to seek humanitarian aid.
The country is experiencing its third drought in a decade, but the current drought “has surpassed the devastating droughts of 2010-2011 and 2016-2017 in duration and severity,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated in July.
Drought has decimated herds, which are vital to the survival of the livestock-dependent population, while crops were devastated by a locust invasion in the Horn of Africa between late 2019 and 2021.
In 2011, Somalia was hit by a famine that left 260,000 dead, half of whom were children under the age of 5. A state of famine was declared from July 2011 to February 2012 in many areas of southern and central Somalia.
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