UN agencies call for urgent action to prevent famine in Somalia

UN relief agencies on Friday called for an urgent scale-up of life-saving assistance to stave off a rapidly intensifying, critical food insecurity emergency in Somalia.

The Food and Agriculture Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN Children's Fund and the World Food Programme issued the plea, said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Haq said that, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report, critical levels of food insecurity in Somalia affect 6 million people, almost a third of the population, including 1.9 million children, 493,000 of whom face severe malnutrition.

The spokesperson said multiple shocks are driving the worsening crisis, including severe drought, insecurity, extremely limited humanitarian assistance and the ripple effects of conflict in the Middle East.

"This is also the first time since 2022 that Somalia is at risk of famine -- in Burhakaba district, in Southwest State," he said. "In 2022, famine was averted through massively scaled up and sustained humanitarian interventions in the aftermath of the longest drought on record."

Haq said that humanitarian assistance in the most-at-risk areas is being scaled up, but with severely constrained resources. Coverage remains limited nationwide, with nearly 90 percent of people receiving little or no support.

According to OCHA, George Conway, UN humanitarian coordinator in Somalia, said there is a narrow but critical window of opportunity in the coming weeks to prevent famine through rapid and expanded humanitarian action.