UN agencies warn Somalia near full-blown famine

Mogadishu, Dec 13 (Prensa Latina) More than 200,000 Somalis are currently suffering catastrophic food shortages and many are dying of hunger, with that number set to rise to over 700,000 next year, according to an analysis by an alliance of U.N. agencies and aid groups.

December 13, 2022
17:04

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which sets the global standard for determining the severity of food crises, said its most acute level, “IPC Phase 5 Famine”, had been temporarily averted but things were getting worse.

The IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale has a complex set of technical criteria by which the severity of crises are measured. Its Phase 5 has two levels, Catastrophe and Famine.

The Somalia analysis found that 214,000 people were classified in Catastrophe and that number was expected to rise to 727,000 from April, 2023 as humanitarian funding dropped off. “They have kept famine outside of the door but nobody knows for how much longer,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson of the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA). “That people are dying from hunger, there’s no doubt about it, but I cannot put a number on it,” he told a news briefing in Geneva after the latest IPC analysis on Somalia came out.

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