Mogadishu (Somalia Today) — Former president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo has urged Somalis at home and abroad to step in as a deepening drought and shrinking aid budgets leave millions without help, weeks after the government declared a national emergency.
In a statement on Thursday, Farmaajo said nearly 5 million Somalis have gone for 2 years without the assistance they urgently need. He warned that international aid now reaches only about a quarter of those in greatest danger and called that “deeply alarming”.
He appealed to Somali intellectuals, business leaders, and ordinary citizens to support families pushed to the edge by failed rains and soaring prices.
Farmaajo also urged the Somali diaspora to organise fundraising drives and practical support for communities hit hardest by the drought.
He called on leaders at the federal and regional levels to put aside rivalries and coordinate a joint response to the crisis. A more united front, he argued, could help channel both domestic contributions and any new donor funding more quickly to families in remote areas.
The former president also pressed international partners to move faster, saying the sharp drop in humanitarian assistance has left thousands of families exposed. He warned that delays in delivering food and water could push parts of the country towards catastrophe.
He ended his appeal with a prayer for rain, asking Allah to ease the hardship and to “grant us His blessings, especially the mercy of rain upon which the lives of the Somali people depend”.
Aid shortfalls
Farmaajo’s call comes as UN agencies warn that Somalia is sliding back towards severe hunger after another failed rainy season. On 10 November, the Federal Government formally declared a drought emergency. It appealed for urgent international help as conditions worsened across northern, central, and southern regions.
Puntland is among the worst-affected areas. Local authorities estimate that nearly one million people there need support, including around 130,000 whose needs they describe as immediate and life-threatening.
A recent UN assessment mission to Bari and Nugaal regions found villages grappling with acute water and food shortages. Community leaders told visiting teams that, without a rapid scale-up in assistance, a much larger disaster could unfold in the coming months.
“We have not received rain since last year; this is the worst drought in years,” said Abdiqani Osman Omar, the mayor of Shaxda village in the Bari region.
Hundreds of displaced families — most of them women and children — have arrived in the area over the past three months, while many men have moved towards neighbouring Ethiopia in search of pasture and water.
The village has little capacity to support them. Even long-time residents now need food and water assistance, local officials say.
Across Puntland, water points have dried up, vegetation has withered, and once-inhabited pastoral settlements stand abandoned.
In Dhaxan town, brief Gu’ showers between April and June brought short-lived hope earlier this year. Residents now rely on expensive trucked water after tests showed the local borehole was contaminated.
Community leader Jama Abshir Hersi said around 150 families moved to the town after the rains, only to find that outside aid had largely dried up.
“We used to receive food and nutrition assistance, and medical supplies for our health unit. All that assistance has dwindled,” he said.
Communities on edge
Funding shortfalls are compounding the crisis. As of 23 November, donors had covered only 23.7 percent of Somalia’s 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan. That gap has forced significant reductions in assistance and pushed agencies to ration support.
The number of people receiving emergency food aid has plunged from 1.1 million in August to just 350,000 this month, according to humanitarian planners. In Puntland alone, 89 supplementary feeding sites and 198 health and stabilisation centres report severe supply shortages.
The drought is unfolding against an already fragile backdrop of conflict, displacement, and earlier failed rainy seasons. Humanitarian planners project that at least 4.4 million people will face acute food insecurity through December.
Aid agencies expect some 1.85 million children under five to suffer acute malnutrition through mid-2026, with many at risk of life-threatening complications if support does not improve.
On the ground, the strain is visible. Local leaders in Bari and Nugaal say families are selling off the last of their livestock, moving towards towns and joining crowded informal settlements that lack clean water, latrines, or clinics.
Many pastoralists now rely on relatives in cities or abroad for survival. Remittances pay for trucked water, small food parcels, and the cost of moving children to places where they can at least access basic health care.
Weather forecasts offer little comfort. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization expects hot and dry conditions to persist across much of Somalia, especially in central and northern regions. These patterns are likely to deepen water stress and limit pasture regeneration at a time when repeated shocks already weaken herds.
Political and diaspora pressure
Farmaajo’s statement adds political weight to appeals already coming from aid agencies and local communities. He aims his message not only at donors but at Somali elites and diaspora networks that have long underpinned schools, clinics, and neighbourhood charities.
He urged business figures and professionals to organise emergency campaigns, arguing that Somalis “must not wait passively” for international pledges to materialise while families run out of food and water.
The former president also called for closer coordination among the Federal Government, regional administrations, and humanitarian partners to ensure supplies reach the worst-hit districts more quickly.
Stronger cooperation, he suggested, would make it easier to track needs, avoid duplication, and reassure both domestic contributors and foreign donors that officials use funds effectively.
Aid workers say that, without a rapid scale-up in support — and a break in the pattern of failed rains — communities already living on the edge may slide into disaster in the months ahead. For now, many are pinning their hopes on both the generosity of Somalis and a renewed sense of urgency from international partners.
