Somalia not at famine levels between October and December : UN agencies, aid groups

Food insecurity and acute malnutrition in Somalia has not reached “IPC Phase 5 Famine” levels between October and December 2022, although the situation there is still a crisis, U.N. agencies and aid groups said on Tuesday.

The assessment was issued by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which sets the global standard for determining the severity of food crises.

Humanitarian organisations have warned for months that parts of Somalia’s Bay region were on the verge of famine because of the impact of a two-year drought, compounded by rising global grain prices and a long-running Islamist insurgency.

The IPC said in a report that following the commendable response efforts of humanitarian actors and local communities, the food insecurity and acute malnutrition situation has not reached famine levels.

“The underlying crisis however has not improved and even more appalling outcomes are only temporarily averted, Prolonged extreme conditions have resulted in massive population displacement and excess cumulative deaths,” the IPCsaid.

Somalia’s last famine in 2011, killed more than a quarter of a million people. Some aid workers have warned that this time could be even worse than in 2011.

The drought has laid waste to the Somali countryside, leaving crops shrivelled and the scrub lands dotted with the corpses of emaciated livestock.