As war rages in Ukraine, Somalia starves
In this edition, war in Ukraine and drought leaves Somalia on the edge of famine and complicates humanitarian aid efforts.
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THE STORY
The plots are small and shallow and litter the arid desert moonscape. They represent an unpalatable reality: These are Somalia’s children, buried in unmarked graves across the desert or outside the camps for internally displaced people in the south of the country, where half the population faces acute food insecurity. An ongoing drought has left millions of Somalians in danger of imminent starvation.
“Famine is at the door,” the UN humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths said in September 2022. And just days ago, the World Health Organization said that about 1.8 million Somalian children under five (that’s over half the total number of kids under five in the country) are likely to suffer acute malnutrition until June, with all the accompanying development risks.