Aid groups warn famine may engulf South Somalia

The harsh drought ravaging the Horn of Africa is likely to worsen and could trigger famine in more regions of Somalia, aid groups warned as they struggle to help the millions already affected.

The UN last month declared famine in the Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions in the south of Somalia, but rising food costs, poor or no harvests and devastated livelihoods were worsening the effects of the drought.

“The next three to four months are set to worsen in Ethiopia, Kenya and parts of southern Somalia and the situation will remain classified as an ‘emergency’ until the end of the year,” aid agency Oxfam warned on Tuesday.

“The whole south of Somalia is likely to be declared a famine due to a combination of worsening pastoral conditions, further food price increases and poor harvest.”

An extra $1.4 billion is needed to stop the spread of famine, said Valerie Amos, the UN under secretary general and emergency relief coordinator. Some $2.48 billion is required to help the drought victims.

Around 12 million people in the Horn of Africa are in danger of starvation because of the prolonged drought that has also hit parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda. The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation said Uganda could soon fall victim of severe food shortages.

“We have started to monitor the situation in Uganda where we are also seeing pockets of food insecurity affected by the same drought conditions,” a FAO official said.

“Uganda may be the next country hit with these same sort of alarming malnutrition and drought conditions.”

Relief groups are struggling to deliver aid to the drought victims and have urged donors to step up assistance to ease the suffering brought by Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades.

The UN children’s agency Unicef appealed to airlines to help fly in food urgently to the drought-hit area.

“We’re making an appeal to the air transport industry for free and heavily discounted cargo space to help us transport emergency nutrition supplies to the Horn of Africa,” said Marixie Mercado, a Unicef official.

British Airways, Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic and UPS have all offered to transport between 15 and 50 metric tonnes a week, but Unicef is “looking to others to step forward as well”, she said.

Unicef is trying to get 5,000 metric tonnes of food from its warehouses in Europe to the region, but it costs about €250,000 to transport just 100 metric tonnes of food by cargo jumbo jet from France to Nairobi – and shipping the food would take six weeks.