NGOs warn of looming hunger in Somalia

Mogadishu, May 19^h, 2019   At least 1.7 million people in Somalia face acute food shortages due to delayed and insufficient seasonal rainfall, humanitarian aid agencies have warned, calling for urgent humanitarian support to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of families at risk.

The national and international agencies operating in the country under the umbrella of the Somalia NGO Consortium, said that reduced access to safe water and growing food insecurity is already putting at risk the lives of millions of Somali populations. They called for an immediate and scaled up response to the growing humanitarian needs in the country.

“The number of people facing acute food shortages is increasing, but we are yet to see strong commitments and unified efforts to save lives. This is very concerning,” said Nasra Ismail, Director of Somalia NGO consortium. “We must strengthen our efforts and increase resources in responding to the needs of families and minimize human suffering,” she added.

The warning  is in response to the release of the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) and FEWS NET report issued in April, 2019 that warned of a worsening food security situation in  the country. The report confirmed that at least 1.7 million people are now estimated to be in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) and Emergency (IPC Phase 4) between April and June 2019 – a 10 percent increase from the initial estimates made in February up until June 2019. The total number of people who do not have access to sufficient food has also increased from 4.6 to 4.9 million people which is at least 40% of the total population.

“Most families were yet to recover from previous droughts and with critically low rainfall this season we will likely see increased vulnerability for many  and renewed risks that we may not have seen before.  Without an urgently scaled-up response, the impact of this drought will be severe,” said Ismail. “Our priority is to save lives and prevent the situation from deteriorating even further. We can only do this by investing more resources towards drought response interventions,” she added.

Although most parts of the country has received moderate to heavy rains this week, this year’s Gu rains ( April-June) are too late and too little to make an impact in food availability.

—-ENDS—-

For more information or to arrange interviews contact:

• Jamillah Mwanjisi, Chair of Advocacy Working Group- Somalia NGO Consortium. Mobile phone: +254 732 334 496, Email: Mwanjisi@savethechildren.org

Notes to the Editor:

The Somalia NGO Consortium is a network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working together to improve international aid coordination and raise the presence and profile of NGO representation within the aid coordination structure for Somalia.