Geneva — A United Nations acute food insecurity report on Somalia issued Tuesday finds famine in that country has been narrowly averted due to the response of humanitarian organizations and local communities to the crisis.
While famine has not been officially declared in Somalia, the United Nations said the country is not yet out of the woods. Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the underlying crisis has not improved. He warned that famine remains an ever-present threat.
"Even though that technically there is not declared a famine, that all the technical thresholds have not been met, does not mean that people are not experiencing catastrophic food shortages. ... The number of people who are expected to experience this is going to rise from 214,000 to 727,000 people."
Laerke said the situation can hardly become worse. If assistance is not scaled up, he said, famine is expected to occur between April and June 2023 in southern Somalia. He said aid in the sectors of health and water, sanitation and hygiene are particularly critical.
Without such help, he warned that hundreds of thousands of agropastoral populations in Baidoa and Burhakaba districts, and among displaced populations in Baidoa town and Mogadishu, will face starvation in the second quarter of next year.
Findings in the U.N. report show Somalia's food crisis will deepen and widen, with about 8.3 million facing acute hunger. Additionally, Laerke said some 2.7 million people are expected to be in what the U.N. classifies as an IPC Phase 4 emergency. This, he explained, is a state of humanitarian emergency that is just one step below famine.
"This phase is characterized by major food shortages, very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality. So, people die," he said. "Already, widespread crop loss, livestock deaths and the prospect of outright starvation have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in search of assistance."
The United Nations reports five consecutive years of failed rains, increasing global food prices, and persistent armed conflict and instability have driven the population to the brink of disaster.
It said international support can head off a devastating famine and prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
