A devastating situation is unfolding in Somalia, where the worst drought in four decades is endangering lives even as humanitarian assistance weakens due to global crises like Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Food shortage is so widespread that Somalia is faced with the risk of famine in a matter of months. Of the estimated 16 million people in the country, seven million are dealing with acute food shortages, The New York Times reported.
The Russia-Ukraine war has exacerbated the situation, paralysing wheat imports from the two countries and sharply increasing prices of staple goods, fertiliser and fuel.
According to UN Environment Programme report, 53 percent of the food that Somalia received under the World Food Programme in 2021 came from war-torn Ukraine.
The threat of hunger across the continent of Africa is so severe that the Head of the African Union, President Macky Sall of Senegal, last week appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to lift the blockade on exports of Ukrainian grain and fertiliser.
How is the Ukraine crisis affecting Somalia?
Even before Russia attacked Ukraine in February this year, pandemic-induced economic disruption and rampant inflation had hit Somalia, with the price of a local food basket in the country soaring 36 percent between February 2021 and 2022, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The Horn of Africa is dependent on the two European countries for basics like grain and sunflower oil.
According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, over 90 percent of Somalia’s net wheat imports in 2021 came from Russia and Ukraine, where around 25 million tonnes (MT) of wheat is currently rotting due to the naval blockade by Russia in the Black Sea port of Odesa.
“The war in Ukraine has dealt a serious blow to what was already a perilous situation for families and children… the result is inflated market prices and unaffordable food and fuel prices,” The Daily Telegraph quoted Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, Director of Save the Children Somalia, as saying.
Meanwhile, prices of other staple food have increased quickly, in some places by over 100 percent. Since March, the price of rice has doubled, Fahima, mother of seven children from the dusty town of Ainabo, told The Daily Telegraph.
“I’m struggling to secure enough food for my children,” she said.
Livestock, which provide Somalian families with meat, milk and savings have died. Even the therapeutic food that is used to treat hungry people in Somalia is becoming more expensive and may soon run out in some places.
Famine is near
The UN has warned that Somalia, in the grip of a drought since 2020, could be tipped into famine this year if it does not receive rains as expected in the next few weeks. The last time Somalia saw famine was in 2011, when nearly 260,000 people died, The Guardian reported.
Children are dying
Since the beginning of this year, at least 448 children have died in Somalia from severe malnutrition, a database managed by UNICEF revealed.
Deaths and acute malnutrition in southern and central Somalia have soared to “atypically high levels,” a report by Associated Press said. Aid centres have witnessed a 40 percent rise in admissions of acutely malnourished children under five over the same period last year, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network said.
Meanwhile, thousands of hungry and homeless people are flooding camps for the displaced in Somalia, even as food supplies dwindle.
“The number of people is so overwhelming that helping them is beyond our capacity. In the past aid agencies helped, but now aid is very scarce. Only God can help them,” Associated Press quoted camp manager Nadifa Hussein as saying.
