MOGADISHU – February 10 (ONLINE): Somalia is experiencing its worst drought crisis in a decade, with millions going hungry and many being forced from their homes in search of food and water, according to a new report by Save the Children.
The international charity’s latest humanitarian assessment, which surveyed more than 12,000 people in 15 of Somalia’s 18 regions, said on Thursday the majority of families were going without meals on a regular basis.
More than one-third of households included at least one person going without food over a 24-hour period. Nearly six in 10 people reported at least one person in their family had lost their source of income, largely due to the death of livestock.
Meanwhile, nearly 700,000 camels, goats, sheep and cattle died from drought-related causes over a two-month period, according to the assessment conducted in November 2021.
“The ultimate culprit is climate change,” Mohamud Mohamed, Save the Children’s country director in Somalia, said in a statement.
“Somalia has always had droughts, and Somalis have always known how to deal with them – they struggle, they lose livestock, they count their losses, and then they bounce back. But now, the gaps between droughts are shrinking. It’s a killer cycle and it’s robbing Somali children of their future.”
Conflict-hit Somalia ranks among the world’s most vulnerable nations to climate change. It has experienced three severe drought crises in the past decade, beginning in 2011, 2016 and 2021.
In 2011, the United Nations declared a famine in Somalia, with 3.7 million people experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity as they do not have enough to eat. This year, the latest food security projections show that 4.6 million Somalis will face crisis to emergency-level food insecurity from February to May.
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