According to a recent assessment, the longest drought on record in Somalia resulted in an estimated 43,000 deaths last year, with children under the age of five possibly accounting for half of them.
It is the first confirmed death toll in the widespread drought that is destroying the Horn of Africa.
It is anticipated that between 18,000 and 34,000 people would pass away in the first half of this year.
“The current crisis is far from finished,” says the research released Monday by the World Health Organization and the United Nations children’s agency and carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Rising food costs worldwide and the conflict in Ukraine exacerbate the hunger situation as Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, which are neighbors, are experiencing their sixth consecutive unsuccessful rainy season.
Earlier this year, the UN and its allies stated that they were no longer foreseeing an official famine declaration for Somalia for the time being, but they still referred to the situation as “very grave,” with more than 6 million people going hungry in just that one nation.
Famine is characterized by a great scarcity of food and a high death rate from malnutrition or outright starvation in addition to illnesses like cholera. When an official famine is declared, evidence indicates that more than a quarter of households have serious food insecurity, more than 30% of children suffer from severe undernourishment, and more than two persons per 10,000 are losing their lives every day.
The UN’s resident coordinator in Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, told reporters on Monday that there was still a possibility of starvation.
This year, some officials in the humanitarian and environmental sectors have issued warnings that trends are worse than the Somalian famine of 2011, which resulted in a quarter-million fatalities.
Francesco Checchi, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told journalists that the fatality rate was rising as the year came to a conclusion. The most severely affected areas are in southwest Somalia’s Bay and Bakool, as well as displaced individuals who have migrated to Mogadishu.
With the current situation, which is exacerbated by climate change and insecurity as Somalia engages in combat with al-affiliate Qaeda’s in East Africa, al-Shabab, millions of livestock have perished. A record number of 3.8 million people, according to the UN office for migration, are displaced.
According to a food security assessment published last month, there will likely be 500,000 acutely malnourished children in Somalia this year.
Many humanitarian officials claim that the world is turning its attention elsewhere at this moment.
In January, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, was briefed by the UN resident coordinator in Mogadishu. “Many of the traditional donors have washed their hands and focused on Ukraine,” she was informed.