Widespread Effects: The Current State of Hunger in Somalia
MOGADISHU — Somalia is a country in the Horn of Africa with an estimated population of 16.3 million. The temperature is hot year-round, with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall. The country struggles with the most humanitarian indicators, suffering from poor governance, protracted internal conflict, underdevelopment, economic decline, poverty, social and gender inequality and environmental decline. It’s no surprise that hunger in Somalia is off the charts.
Civil war and famine have raised its mortality rate, but Somalia’s high fertility rate and large number of people of reproductive age produce rapid population growth. Each generation is larger than the one before. More than 60 percent of Somalia’s population is under 25, and the fertility rate is among the world’s highest at almost six children per woman.
A lack of educational and job opportunities is a major source of tension for Somalia’s youth, making them vulnerable to recruitment by extremist and pirate groups. Life expectancy is low as a result of high infant and maternal mortality rates, the spread of preventable diseases, poor sanitation, inadequate health services, chronic malnutrition and hunger in Somalia.
According to the U.N., hunger in Somalia spread dramatically this spring. Over six million people are in need of food assistance. The drought, impending famine and the presence of Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group, have left the country and its people in a desperate situation. The situation has grown more critical in recent months. This year the drought is worse than it has been in almost a decade, and there has yet to be food aid provided.
In 2011, more than a quarter of a million people died during a drought-induced famine. The U.N. says that more than half died before the famine was declared.
The sense of urgency is not lost on those with the power to create change. International aid is needed to help with the dramatic widening of hunger in Somalia. In addition to drought and famine, diseases, such as cholera and measles, are spreading.
The International Organization for Migration has warned that if “action is not taken immediately, early warning signals point towards a growing humanitarian crisis in Somalia of potentially catastrophic proportions.”
In the Northern part of Somalia, three years with nearly no rain has had increasingly disastrous effects for a population reliant on the land. The burned out soil did not produce any weeds for the cattle that the people depend on for their income and food. Local leaders in Puntland estimate the pastoralists have already lost 65 percent of their animals.
While the men accompany the remaining livestock in the hunt for grazing land, the women and children are migrating towards towns in search of alternative food sources.
Hunger in Somalia can be stopped with the support of international aid. IOM’s 2017 Somali Drought Appeal was developed to enhance current response and expand the U.N. Migration Agency’s geographic footprint within the country. IOM teams on the ground are rapidly scaling up ongoing interventions in the fields of health, shelter, water and sanitation, protection and food security.
The Appeal includes and builds on strategies in the the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan and U.N. OCHA’s Pre-Famine Operational Plan forvJanuary-June 2017, that target the country’s most critical life-saving needs.
– Yana Emets
Photo: Flickr
