Somalia teeters on the brink of catastrophe as hunger crisis deepens

This article is published in association with United Nations.

“This is not a distant warning. This is a crisis that is unfolding right now and it’s deepening quickly.”

That’s the verdict delivered on Friday by World Food Programme (WFP) Assistant Executive Director Matthew Hollingworth upon his return from Somalia, where millions are once again being pushed toward the brink of famine.

The UN’s emergency food agency is warning that nearly six million people – roughly one in three Somalis – now face acute hunger, including two million already experiencing emergency levels of food insecurity, just one step away from famine.

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Around 1.9 million children are acutely malnourished.

Hormuz factor

According to WFP, the crisis is being intensified by global economic shocks linked to instability in and around the Strait of Hormuz and the wider Middle East crisis. 

Food prices have surged by as much as 70 per cent in some areas of Somalia, while fuel prices have risen 150 per cent, driving up the cost of transporting aid and basic goods.

Supply routes have also been disrupted, making humanitarian operations increasingly difficult as repeated droughts, conflict and displacement continue to devastate communities across the country.

Mr. Hollingworth cited the example of therapeutic food containers due to arrive in Somalia which had been 40 days late “because of the impact on global shipping”. 

Families abandoning homes

The senior official – speaking to journalists in Geneva – described severe conditions across Somalia, particularly in Puntland, where dried-up water sources, collapsing livelihoods and successive failed rainy seasons are forcing families to flee in a desperate search for food and water.

“Somalia has now endured multiple failed rainy seasons – three consecutively –which has devastated crops, wiped out livestock, is eroding livelihoods and is impacting millions of people,” he said

He recalled meeting families who had left everything behind after losing animals, farms and income sources that could no longer sustain them.

Just one day earlier in Mogadishu, he met a newly displaced family that had arrived in the capital after fleeing the south: one among thousands now seeking assistance in overcrowded urban areas.

Even recent rainfall has brought little relief to communities that have already exhausted their ability to cope, he warned.

Aid response collapsing

WFP says humanitarian agencies are now being forced to make “impossible choices” because of severe funding shortages.

The agency warned that it is currently reaching only one in ten people in need of food assistance, a dramatic drop from last year when more than two million people were receiving aid.

During his visit to Puntland, Mr. Hollingworth toured a health centre where mothers had walked hundreds of kilometres with malnourished children seeking treatment.

One mother told him her three-year-old son had received only two months of nutritional support before aid was cut off because resources had run out.

“She is now forced to work out how on earth she will feed her child and other children next month,” he said.

In the same region, the number of functioning health centres has fallen from 12 last year to just three today. Preventive nutrition programmes have stopped entirely in some facilities, leaving only emergency treatment available

WFP warned that without urgent new funding, its operations in Somalia could halt entirely by July.

Echoes of 2022 famine scare

Aid officials drew stark comparisons to 2022, when Somalia came dangerously close to famine after prolonged drought and mass displacement.

At the time, a large-scale international humanitarian response helped avert catastrophe.

Mr. Hollingworth stressed that the same outcome is still possible now – but only if governments and donors act immediately.

“Famine is always preventable,” he said. “Prevention depends on timely action.”

WFP says it already has the systems and infrastructure in place to rapidly expand assistance, including 1.7 million biometrically registered people who could immediately receive emergency cash support.

But officials warned that without immediate international action, Somalia risks sliding into another devastating humanitarian disaster.

“Hunger is rising. Coping strategies are collapsing. And the window is starting to close,” Mr. Hollingworth said.