WFP Says It May Halt Somalia Food Operations by July as Nearly 6 Million Face Acute Hunger

Nearly six million people in Somalia face acute hunger, roughly one in three Somalis, as the country teeters once more on the edge of famine. Matthew Hollingworth, the Assistant Executive Director of the World Food Programme, returned from a visit to Somalia and spoke to journalists in Geneva on Friday. "This is not a distant warning.

This is a crisis that is unfolding right now and it's deepening quickly," he stated. 9 million children are acutely malnourished. Food prices in some areas have surged by as much as 70 per cent and fuel prices have risen 150 per cent, according to WFP data.

Therapeutic food containers due to arrive in Somalia were 40 days late because of the impact on global shipping. The disruptions trace to economic shocks linked to instability in and around the Strait of Hormuz and the wider Middle East crisis. Somalia has endured three consecutive failed rainy seasons.

Hollingworth met families in Puntland who had left everything behind after losing animals, farms and income sources. One day earlier in Mogadishu, he met a newly displaced family that had arrived after fleeing the south. Even recent rainfall has brought little relief to communities that have already exhausted their ability to cope.

Humanitarian agencies are being forced to make impossible choices because of severe funding shortages. WFP is currently reaching only one in ten people in need of food assistance in Somalia. Last year WFP was reaching more than two million people with aid in Somalia.

In Puntland the number of functioning health centres has fallen from 12 last year to three today. Preventive nutrition programmes have stopped entirely in some facilities in Puntland, leaving only emergency treatment available. Mothers in Puntland have walked hundreds of kilometres with malnourished children seeking treatment.

A mother told Hollingworth that her three-year-old son had received only two months of nutritional support before aid was cut off. "She is now forced to work out how on earth she will feed her child and other children next month," he said. WFP operations in Somalia could halt entirely by July without urgent new funding.

AllAfrica reported that the agency has systems and infrastructure in place to rapidly expand assistance. 7 million biometrically registered people in Somalia who could immediately receive emergency cash support. In 2022 Somalia came dangerously close to famine after prolonged drought and mass displacement.

A large-scale international humanitarian response in 2022 helped avert famine in Somalia. "Famine is always preventable," Hollingworth stated.