On Wednesday, more than 60 aid organizations working in Somalia urged the international community to help avert a possible famine in the country in 2022 due to worsening drought conditions.
In a joint letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, country directors of aid organizations such as World Vision, Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council, and ActionAid wrote that the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating, with about 4.5 million people in need of immediate assistance.
“We request that you urge donors and Member States to commit additional resources to enable an immediate scale-up of humanitarian response in Somalia to prevent famine and save lives,” the agencies wrote in their letter.
More than 1.4 million children, nearly half of the country’s under-five population, are likely to suffer from acute malnutrition, with 329,500 of them severely malnourished, according to the report.
“We are now witnessing an impending famine similar to the one that occurred in 2010/2011, when over a quarter of a million people died, including 133,000 children under the age of five,” the agencies said.
Although some donors have pledged to fund Somalia’s Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), which seeks 1.5 billion dollars, the agencies claim that only 4% of the funding needed to meet the country’s humanitarian needs has been allocated.
According to the organizations, Somalia already has 2.9 million internally displaced people, and total drought displacement could reach 1.4 million by mid-2022 if emergency aid is not delivered.
During the long rainy season of April to June, weather experts predict unprecedented fourth consecutive below-average rainfall across most of the country.
The current drought, they said, is a regional crisis that has affected countries in the Horn of Africa, but Somalis are bearing the brunt of it, with increasing numbers of people crossing into neighboring countries.
“We’re on the verge of running out of time. It’s time to keep the promise of ‘never again,’ which was made during the 2017 drought, when the humanitarian community’s quick action saved lives. The window of opportunity to avert a famine is rapidly closing. We can’t afford to wait any longer if we don’t want history to repeat itself “According to the agencies,