Geneva, Switzerland | AFP
Millions of people in Somalia are at risk of famine due to prolonged drought, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Tuesday.
After two consecutive failed rainy seasons, there is a high risk of a return to the “catastrophic levels of hunger seen in 2022”, the ICRC said in a statement.
Unless there is rain urgently, only a massive increase in humanitarian aid will prevent “millions of people” from slipping further “into emergency levels of hunger,” it said.
The number of people in Somalia classed as being in a “crisis or worse” situation nearly doubled between early 2025 and February-March 2026 to reach 6.5 million people, according to an assessment published last week by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
The United Nations agency, based in Rome, measures hunger and malnutrition around the world.
“At the same time, humanitarian funding for Somalia has sharply decreased, forcing many organisations to close programmes, limiting food and water assistance, as well as healthcare and livelihood support, even as needs are rising sharply,” the ICRC said.
On February 20, the UN World Food Programme warned that it would have to cease its humanitarian aid in the Horn of Africa country by April if it did not receive new funds.
The ICRC said that animal herding, on which more than 60 percent of Somalis depend for their livelihood, had been weakened by repeated climate shocks and was “now on the verge of collapse.”
Herds of goats and camels have been decimated, “leaving families without any source of income or food and forcing thousands of people to seek refuge in makeshift camps,” it said.
Decades of fighting in Somalia have exacerbated the situation.
Last year, more than 500,000 people were forced from their homes by the combined effects of conflict and drought, the UN agency said.
“The fighting has caused displacement. The drought has caused displacement… The situation will become desperate if the rains don’t come soon,” said Mohamed Sheikh, who oversees ICRC operations in the Galmudug region.
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