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In 2011, Somalia experienced a devastating famine that killed over a quarter of a million people – half of them children under the age of five. The international community failed to act in time, despite repeated warnings of an impending crisis. Yet, just over a decade later, and despite various alarms over the past two years, world leaders are once again responding too late and with too little to avert catastrophic hunger in East Africa.

A year and a half since the Covid-19 pandemic began, deaths from hunger are outpacing the virus. The worst is still yet to come unless governments urgently tackle food insecurity and its root causes head on. We need action to create fairer, more resilient and sustainable ways of feeding the world.

There is growing scientific analysis suggesting that the impacts of current and recent droughts in East Africa are likely to have been aggravated by climate change. Without global efforts to reduce emissions and to help the world’s poorest people cope with the effects of climate change, this crisis will continue to repeat itself.

Almost four years of brutal conflict in Yemen have led to what the UN describes as the worst humanitarian situation on the globe. 60 percent of the population - 20 million people - are suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition, with nearly 14 million people facing starvation. They need your help.

In South Sudan, nearly 5 million people - 40 percent of the population - are facing extreme hunger. "We are seeing communities now at the breaking point". Read more about the situation and support our humanitarian response.

We are seriously concerned that a lack of food may peak in May and June reaching emergency levels in South Sudan.

Agencies fear recent improvements will be wiped out as the number of severely hungry people will rise by one million in first three months of 2015.

A group of seven major international aid agencies said they face a shortfall of $89 million just when the South Sudan humanitarian crisis edges closer to the risk of famine.

A new survey of people across 40 regions of Somalia by international agency Oxfam has found that water and food shortages are at critical levels and likely to deteriorate in parts of the country over the coming months, risking a prolonged humanitarian crisis well into next year.

Last week, British actor Bonnie Wright, best known for her role in the Harry Potter films, travelled to Senegal with Oxfam to draw attention to the growing humanitarian crisis in the country and to the wider food crisis across the Sahel region of West Africa.