By Maytaal Angel
Tuesday June 7, 2022
Nearly a quarter of a million people are facing starvation
in Somalia as a drought worsens and global food prices hover near record highs,
United Nations agencies said on Monday.
The agencies said a fourth consecutive rainy season had
failed in the Horn of Africa country and meteorologists were warning of another
below-average rainy season later this year as the world's climate becomes more
erratic.
At the same time, world food prices are close to record
highs hit in March as the Russia-Ukraine war roils markets for staple grains
and edible oils.
Around 213,000 Somalis are at risk of starvation, a near
three-fold increase from levels expected in April, according to the statement
from the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO), the children's agency UNICEF and the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
They said some 7.1 million Somalis or nearly half the
population face acute levels of food insecurity, meaning they will be barely
able to get the minimum calories they need and might have to sell assets to
survive.
"The lives of the most vulnerable are already at risk
from malnutrition and hunger, we cannot wait for a declaration of famine to
act," El-Khidir Daloum, the WFP's country director in Somalia, said.
Around 3 million livestock have died in Somalia due to the
drought since mid-2021, the agencies said.
The U.N.'s 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan is only 18%
funded to date, and Somalia is competing with other global emergency hotspots
for funding as food insecurity spreads around the world, the agencies added.
In 2011, famine conditions killed an estimated quarter of a
million people in Somalia.
(Reporting by Maytaal Angel; Editing by Andrew Heavens)