MOGADISHU, Somalia – The international aid agencies say 1.7 million people could face acute food shortages due to delayed and insufficient seasonal rainfall in Somalia.
In a new report released by Somalia-NGO Consortium called for urgent humanitarian support to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of families at risk in the war-ravaged nation of Somalia.
The aid group says reduced access to safe water and growing food insecurity is already putting at risk the lives of millions Somali populations.
Director of Somalia NGO Consortium, Nasra Ismail called for an immediate and scaled up response to the growing humanitarian needs in Somalia.
Ismail said number of people facing acute food shortages have been increasing, adding that “we are yet to see strong commitments and unified efforts to save lives”.
She said “we must strengthen our efforts and increase resources in responding to the needs of families and minimize human suffering”.
Ismail added its warning was in response to the release of the FSNAU and FEWS NET report which was issued in April, 2019, warning of a worsening food security situation in Somalia.
The joint report said at least 1.7 million people are now estimated to be in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) and Emergency (IPC Phase 4) between April and June 2019 — a 10 percent increase from the initial estimates made in February up until June 2019.
The total number of people who do not have access to sufficient food has also increased from 4.6 to 4.9 million people which are at least 40 of the total population.
“Most families were yet to recover from previous droughts and with critically low rainfall this season we will likely see increased vulnerability for many to renewed risks”, she said.
Ismail stated “Our priority is to save lives and prevent the situation from deteriorating even further”.
However, the aid group said it could only do that by investing more resources towards drought response interventions.
