Somalia food crisis

Oxfam together with nearly 50 NGOs from the Somalia NGO Consortium, warns of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Somalia and calls upon donors to urgently fund Somalia's drought crisis response.

Nearly 90% of Somalia is now in a severe drought, following three consecutive failed rain seasons. Some areas facing their driest season in 40 years. Nearly 3.5 million people are already acutely food insecure and millions more are now at risk of going hungry by the beginning of next year.

A year on since the UN warned of “famines of biblical proportions”, rich donors have funded just 5 percent of the UN’s $7.8bn food security appeal for 2021. More than 200 NGOs published an open letter today calling upon all governments to urgently increase aid to stop over 34 million people, from being pushed to the brink of starvation this year.

The threat of “COVID famines” and widespread extreme hunger are setting off every alarm bell within the international community, but so far sluggish funding of the UN's appeal is hampering humanitarian agencies’ efforts to deliver urgent assistance to people in need.

Oxfam together with over 100 NGOs, activists and academics, raises the alarm as remittances to Somalia drop precipitously amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Oxfam is preparing for a potential response as swarms of locusts sweep across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia and are likely to grow 500 times bigger by June to neighboring Uganda and South Sudan. The plagues are hitting the East African region where food insecurity has already reached record levels.

Senait Gebregziabher, Oxfam Country Director for Somalia said: