By Aaron Ross
NAIROBI, May 14 (Reuters) – A district in southern Somalia is at risk of famine, a U.N.-sponsored report said on Thursday, the first time that part of the country has reached such a critical level of hunger since 2022.
One of the world’s most food-insecure nations due to frequent drought, conflict and poverty, Somalia last experienced famine in 2011, when around 250,000 people died, and came close in 2017 and 2022.
This time, global cuts to foreign aid and the impacts of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran are complicating efforts to respond to food shortages caused by multiple failed rain seasons and ongoing insecurity.
More than one in three young children in the Burhakaba District of southern Somalia’s Bay Region, which is estimated to have a population of around 200,000, suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the report by Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
“The IPC analysis found Burhakaba District to be at risk of Famine under a plausible worst-case scenario offailing Gu (season) rains, soaring food prices and below expected delivery of humanitarian food security assistance,” the report said.
Famine occurs when at least 20% of households in an area face an extreme lack of food, at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and two out of every 10,000 people are dying each day because of hunger.
The number of Somalis facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse was about 6 million. That is lower than the 6.5 million reported in February but worse than the projected 5.5 million for this period due to worse-than-expected rains.
Global cuts to foreign aid, led by the United States, have substantially reduced support to Somalia.
The IPC report said humanitarian assistance for the April-June period had increased significantly, but still covered only 12% of those facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse.
“Somalia risks becoming one of the first major crises of the ‘post-aid era’: a place where needs are growing, survival is becoming more expensive, and the response is shrinking,” said Daud Jiran, the Somalia country director at Mercy Corps, an aid group.
(Reporting by Aaron Ross, editing by Gareth Jones )
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