‘The brink of famine’: Drought puts an entire generation of Somalis at risk

For thousands of Somali families, the trek to Baidoa is an arduous and painful one. More than 200,000 people have arrived in the Somali city in the past year, often on foot, fleeing from drought and hunger in their rural homes. The children who reach the city are frail and malnourished, doctors say, and many perish along the route.

“We see mothers who tell us they have lost babies on the way, but they continue their journey to bring other children for treatment,” said Asma Aweis Abdallah, medical activity manager in Baidoa for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

“Most of the children we receive are already underweight. Some lose subcutaneous fat – they are just skin on bone.”

Five consecutive rainy seasons have failed to arrive in Somalia, prolonging its worst drought in more than 40 years, and forecasts suggest that a sixth rainy season is likely to fail in the next several months, meaning that the country will endure three full years of drought. Soaring food prices, climate change and continuing clashes with Islamist insurgents are compounding the disaster. The prices of maize and sorghum in Somalia have tripled since 2021.

By April, the number of Somalis facing acute food shortages is projected to climb to 8.3 million – about half of the country’s population – from about six million this month. About 1.8 million Somali children are acutely malnourished. More than 3.5 million livestock have died since the middle of 2021, severely damaging the incomes of farmers and reducing access to milk. More than a million people have abandoned their homes because of the drought, migrating to cities such as Baidoa and Mogadishu in search of help.

Detail

AFRICA

SOMALIA

ETHIOPIA

Indian Ocean

Dolow

Baidoa

% population

affected by

drought

Mogadishu

Oct. 2022

KENYA

20% - 30%

31% - 40%

41% - 50%

51% - 60%

0

200

61% - 74%

KM

Major droughts in Somalia since 2008

Population classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse), in millions

8

Projected

Crisis

Emergency

Catastrophe

6

4

2

0

‘08

‘10

‘12

‘14

‘16

2018

2020

2022

Note: When comparing years, it is essential to consider that the methodology and base population data have changed over time.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TILEZEN; OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS;

UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Detail

AFRICA

SOMALIA

ETHIOPIA

Indian Ocean

Dolow

Baidoa

% population

affected by

drought

Mogadishu

Oct. 2022

KENYA

20% - 30%

31% - 40%

41% - 50%

51% - 60%

0

200

61% - 74%

KM

Major droughts in Somalia since 2008

Population classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse), in millions

8

Projected

Crisis

Emergency

Catastrophe

6

4

2

0

‘08

‘10

‘12

‘14

‘16

2018

2020

2022

Note: When comparing years, it is essential to consider that the methodology and base population data have changed over time.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TILEZEN; OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS;

UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Detail

AFRICA

SOMALIA

ETHIOPIA

Indian Ocean

Dolow

Baidoa

% population

affected by

drought

Mogadishu

Oct. 2022

KENYA

20% - 30%

31% - 40%

41% - 50%

51% - 60%

0

200

61% - 74%

KM

Major droughts in Somalia since 2008

Population classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse), in millions

8

Projected

Crisis

Emergency

Catastrophe

6

4

2

0

‘08

‘10

‘12

‘14

‘16

2018

2020

2022

Note: When comparing years, it is essential to consider that the methodology and base population data have changed over time.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TILEZEN; OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS;

UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs

The drought is part of a wider catastrophe across the Horn of Africa region, where humanitarian budgets are far below their target levels, squeezed by the Ukraine war and rising food costs. About 28 million people across the Horn of Africa are facing acute hunger, and the number of children at risk of severe hunger has doubled in the past five months. But the single biggest disaster is in Somalia.

When the International Rescue Committee drew up its latest annual list of global emergencies that will need the greatest humanitarian aid in the year ahead, Somalia topped the list for the first time. “The country is on the brink of famine,” the U.S.-based humanitarian agency said last month.

“This is no ‘natural disaster.’ Human-caused climate change has increased the frequency and severity of droughts. Decades of conflict have eroded Somalia’s ability to respond to shocks of any kind, destroying systems and infrastructure that would have provided a guardrail against the current crisis.”

From floods in South Africa to drought in Somalia, climate change is devastating millions of lives

In a similar crisis in 2011, a panel of relief agencies formally declared that Somalia was in a famine. This triggered an outpouring of donations and humanitarian funding from around the world – although a quarter-million Somalis still died of hunger by the time the drought was over. Half of the victims were children.

This time, for complicated political and technical reasons, no famine has yet been declared, even though the death toll might be similar by the end. Relief organizations are desperately seeking to rouse the world’s attention with grim details of a devastated population under a seemingly endless cycle of malnutrition and disease.

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Dr. Aweis, in an account for Médecins Sans Frontières, described how chronic malnutrition is damaging the immune systems of many children, leaving them vulnerable to illnesses that then require further medical treatment. “In Baidoa, we are seeing this cycle of people coming in with infectious diseases, then coming back for malnutrition, or the other way around,” she said.

“People are going through so much grief and pain. We haven’t had enough time between one disaster and another.”

David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, warned that an entire generation in Somalia is at risk. Stunted growth, poor immunity and restricted learning ability are among the long-term consequences, he said in a recent statement.

“Children with severe malnutrition grow thin, weak and lethargic,” Mr. Miliband said. “They have near-constant diarrhea. Their muscles atrophy as all but their body’s most essential systems shut down. On top of their physical symptoms, they emotionally withdraw, becoming disengaged with the world around them.”

The most detailed assessment of the Somalia hunger disaster was released last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, known as IPC, which is run by United Nations agencies and other relief organizations and is partly funded by Canada. It did not formally announce a famine, because the technical thresholds for famine had not been reached, but it warned that this “appalling” outcome had been “only temporarily averted.”

The report concluded that Somalia’s death rate was continuing to rise, and famine could arrive between April and June in some regions, where more than 700,000 people could starve.

“Prolonged extreme conditions have resulted in massive population displacement and excess cumulative deaths,” the 44-page report said. “Excess mortality has been elevated for many months and, as a result, cumulative mortality continues to increase.”

Some relief workers say the absence of an official famine declaration is largely because of failures in data collection, especially in war-ravaged areas or in regions controlled by the Islamist rebel militia al-Shabab, where hunger is widespread and deaths are uncounted. “We’re afraid this may lead the international community into further complacency,” said Mohamed Abdi, the Somalia country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, in a statement after the release of the IPC report.

“Let us be absolutely clear: Famine is already present and killing tens of thousands silently in Somalia,” he said.

“Half of the areas worst affected by the drought in the south are entirely out of our reach because of the fighting. But we can only assume the worst: those who are left behind are the most vulnerable, left with no resources or energy to flee for food and water. Lethal hunger has been allowed to spread like wildfire.”

Analysts also believe that political factors have delayed the declaration of a famine. Somalia’s government seems opposed to a famine declaration, worrying that it would divert resources from longer-term development projects and the battle against al-Shabab. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud appeared to confirm this concern in September when he said a famine announcement would “halt development and change perspectives.” Relief agencies are unlikely to declare a famine in Somalia if the government is against it.

While most of the global attention has focused on food shortages and hunger, the drought is also having a severe impact on water supplies, sanitation, and even on children’s education. The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, has estimated that 4.5 million Somalis need emergency help with water supplies, partly because the price of water has climbed by as much as 85 per cent in the past two years. Without clean water, the risk of cholera outbreaks is increasing. Thousands of suspected cholera cases have already been reported across Somalia.

Nearly a million children are at risk of losing access to school because of the drought, UNICEF says. And from past experience, it estimates that 90 per cent of those forced to miss school will never return. The future of an entire generation is in jeopardy.