Thursday April 7, 2022
More than 60 aid agencies operating in Somalia on Wednesday
appealed to the international community to work to avert a possible famine in
Somalia in 2022 due to worsening drought conditions.
The country directors of aid agencies including World
Vision, Save The Children, Norwegian Refugee Council and ActionAid said in a
joint letter to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the humanitarian
situation is deteriorating rapidly with about 4.5 million people in need of urgent
assistance.
"We request you to urge donors and the Member States to
commit additional resources to enable immediate scale-up of humanitarian
response in Somalia to avert a possible famine and save lives," the
agencies said in their letter.
They warned that more than 1.4 million children, nearly half
of the country's under-five population, are likely to suffer from acute
malnutrition with 329,500 of them likely to be severely malnourished.
"What we are now seeing is an impending famine similar
to that which occurred in 2010/2011 in which more than a quarter of 1 million
people died -- including 133,000 children under the age of five," the
agencies said.
The agencies said although some donors have committed to
funding Somalia's Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) which seeks 1.5 billion U.S.
dollars, not even 4 percent of the funding required to meet Somalia's
humanitarian needs has been allocated.
The organizations said there are already an estimated 2.9
million internally displaced persons in Somalia and total drought displacement
may reach 1.4 million by mid-2022 if no emergency aid is delivered.
Weather experts forecast unprecedented fourth consecutive
below-average rains during the long rainy season of April to June across most
of the country.
They said the current drought is a regional crisis and has
affected countries in the Horn of Africa, but the Somali people are facing the
brunt of it, with increasing numbers of people crossing to neighboring
countries.
"We are running out of time. It is time to keep the
promise of 'never again' that was made during the 2017 drought when the
immediate action of the humanitarian community led to lives being saved. The
window to avert a famine is closing fast. If we don't want to see history
repeating itself, we cannot delay action any longer," the agencies said.