This article is focused on the following UN Sustainable Development Goal:
Food plays a significant role in everyone's daily lives. It is difficult to imagine life without it. Many individuals do not, however, pause to consider that there are some who go without food on a daily basis. Somalia, a beautiful country in the Horn of Africa, is currently experiencing a hunger crisis that has devastated millions of Somalians. People are left wondering when their next meal will be. “More than 7.1 million people — roughly half of Somalia’s population — are in need of food assistance. One out of every five children in the country will face deadly forms of malnutrition by October should current conditions remain.” In April of this year, around 1.5 million children under five were facing malnutrition, 386,000 of these kids faced severe malnutrition, therefore at serious risk of dying without immediate treatment. The worst drought is being seen in four decades due to the consecutive lack of a rainy season, which has forced around a million Somalians to leave their homes in a desperate search for food and aid. 750,000 of these people were displaced this year alone. In May, 213,000 people were considered to be in the catastrophic category of hunger. Flooding, climate change, and the increasing amount of locusts are some of the many factors that have left many people in famine. In this heartbreaking scene, people are crying out for help and mothers are mourning the loss of their children. Recent events such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the pandemic due to the Covid-19 outbreak, have further led to the detrimental growth of poverty rates, as it has negatively impacted the economy of Somalia.
The last famine Somalia experienced was over a decade ago. Many critics had warned that the declaration of famine in Somalia was much too late and that an earlier announcement could have made a more responsive call to action, creating a more positive outcome. The country is in the same situation, it is a hair away from this happening again. U.N officials and numerous organisations have made notice and warned about the accumulating hunger in Somalia and other regions of Africa. However, famine is a significant and uncommon event that the United Nations along with numerous national governments are typically the first to declare. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, “A Famine classification (IPC Phase 5) is the highest phase of the IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale, and is attributed when an area has at least 20% of households facing an extreme lack of food, at least 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition, and two people for every 10,000 dying each day due to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease.” The Famine declared in 2011 left more than a million people dead, half of whom were under the age of five. Since then, changes have been made but much progress is still needed.
A violent and problematic uprising by the Islamist fundamentalist insurgent group, who go by the name al-Shabaab, control a large portion of the country and are worsening the impacts of this gruesome crisis. About a million Somalis live in parts of the country that are heavily dominated by the al-Shabaab. Countless deaths are believed to be uncounted for in these rural areas, making the reality of the suffering in Somalia far worse than imagined and far worse than the data has revealed. Warning signs of a recurring famine have been apparent for the world to see. “The crisis is worse now than any time in my life working in Somalia for the last 20 years, and it is because of the compounded effect of the war in Ukraine,” said Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, Somalia country director for the charity Save the Children, to his colleague Sudarsan Raghavan in June.
“Communities are at a breaking point.” So what is being done to help this crisis?
Foreign aid has been rolling in slowly. $1.5 billion dollars was proposed by the United Nations in response to the hunger crisis, but unfortunately, only seventeen percent was funded in April, and two-thirds were funded in August. The International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) zero hunger initiative in Somalia has had some impact on this crisis, as the goal of this is to give aid to the people who are in most need in Africa and most vulnerable due to poverty and the lack of resources. The Somalia Red Crescent Society (SRCS) has provided beneficial assistance to 560,000 people in Somaliland and Puntland, which are located in the northeastern region of Somalia. The IFRC is supportive of the SRCS which has contributed to the Zero Hunger movement by IFRC.
The USAID administration has planned to help feed at least 3.5 million people a month, putting $668 million to fund and push this plan along. “The world is witnessing how climate change, conflict, rising food costs, and the knock-on impacts of COVID-19 are collapsing food systems and leading to preventable deaths,” Jiran said in an email. “Continuing drought and starvation are the future if we do not protect the planet from a changing climate and help the communities hit first and hardest, like those in Somalia, mitigate and adapt.”
To conclude, I encourage you to not take the luxury of food for granted. Millions do not have the same opportunities, think twice the next time you dispose of food.
Remember, change starts with you.
Ifrc.org. 2022. Somalia: Hunger crisis 2021-2022 | IFRC. [online] Available at: <https://www.ifrc.org/emergency/somalia-hunger-crisis-2021-2022> [Accessed 13 October 2022].
The Washington Post. 2022. Somalia is on the verge of famine while the world looks away. [online] Available at: <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/07/somalia-famine-drought-global-hunger/> [Accessed 13 October 2022].
Ipcinfo.org. 2022. Famine facts | IPC Global Platform. [online] Available at: <https://www.ipcinfo.org/famine-facts/> [Accessed 14 October 2022].
Wfp.org. 2022. Somalia emergency | World Food Programme. [online] Available at: <https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/somalia-emergency> [Accessed 14 October 2022].
Action Against Hunger. 2022. Somalia | Hunger Relief in Africa. [online] Available at: <https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/countries/africa/somalia> [Accessed 15 October 2022].
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