(United Nations) The head of the World Food Program (WFP) on Thursday called on the international community to come to the aid of “traumatized and hungry Somalis”, as food insecurity “soars” again in the victim country armed conflicts and drought.
“I traveled to Somalia last month and saw firsthand how conflict and climate change combine to destroy the lives and livelihoods of millions of Somalis,” Cindy McCain told the Security Council of the UN, describing a daily life of “violence, fear and hunger”.
At the end of 2022, the country, victim of a historic drought that began in 2020, had escaped widespread famine thanks to the intensification of the humanitarian response.
“But today, we risk losing the valuable advances made since those dark days of last year,” she warned.
The latest figures “show that food insecurity is soaring across Somalia”, she added.
“More than 6.6 million people – a third of the population – are expected to face a food crisis or even worse levels of hunger. This includes 40,000 people struggling to survive in near-starvation conditions.”
“Even worse, 1.8 million children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2023,” she said.
Since the beginning of 2022, armed conflicts “have caused more than a million internal displacements”, added to 2.1 million displaced due to climatic disasters in the past three years, she noted.
“Because of constantly having to move, people are poor, traumatized and hungry”.
And despite these conditions, for lack of sufficient means, the WFP is obliged to reduce its “vital” food aid.
In December, the UN agency could provide food aid to a “record” of 4.7 million people per month but “at the end of April, we had to reduce to 3 million per month”, insisted Cindy McCain.
“And without an immediate cash injection, we will still have to cut our beneficiary lists in July to just 1.8 million per month,” she warned.
The UN had appealed for $2.6 billion for Somalia for 2023, but the humanitarian aid plan is only about 30% funded.