Mogadishu (Somalia Today) — The United Nations food agency warned Friday that its life-saving emergency assistance in Somalia could grind to a halt within weeks without an urgent cash injection, raising the risk of catastrophe in the drought-stricken nation.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said its resources could run out by April unless international donors quickly restore funding.
The warning comes after Somalia declared a national drought emergency in November, as severe water shortages, widespread crop failures and major livestock losses took hold.
Somalia is now facing one of its most complex hunger crises in recent years.
Two failed rainy seasons, relentless conflict and a sharp, unprecedented drop in humanitarian funding are driving the emergency.
An estimated 4.4 million people — roughly a quarter of the population — face crisis-level food insecurity or worse, according to the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system.
Within that group, nearly one million men, women and children are experiencing severe hunger.
“The situation is deteriorating at an alarming rate,” said Ross Smith, WFP’s director of emergency preparedness and response.
“Families have lost everything, and many are already being pushed to the brink,” he added.
Steep cuts
A global funding crunch has already forced the Rome-based agency to make severe cuts across its operations.
In early 2025, WFP provided emergency food assistance to 2.2 million people across Somalia.
Today, it reaches just over 600,000.
That plunge means the agency is supporting only one in every seven people who need emergency food assistance to survive.
WFP has also sharply reduced vital nutrition programmes.
In October 2025, it assisted nearly 400,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women and young children. By December, that figure had fallen to 90,000.
Aid workers warn the cuts could quickly drive up acute malnutrition as household food stocks shrink and vital water sources dry up across the Horn of Africa nation.
The UN estimates that 1.85 million Somali children under five could suffer from acute malnutrition this year.
Without immediate support, Smith warned, WFP may not reach the most vulnerable in time, “most of them women and children.”
Echoes of famine
WFP says it urgently needs $95 million to maintain operations between March and August 2026.
Without that funding, the agency says it will have to shut down all humanitarian assistance entirely by April.
The alarm revives dark memories in Somalia, a country highly exposed to climate extremes and decades of political instability.
In 2022, a historic drought pushed Somalia to the brink of famine.
A major international scale-up, led by WFP and its partners, helped avert the worst-case scenario.
Still, a joint study by the World Health Organization and UNICEF estimated that around 43,000 “excess deaths” occurred that year due to the drought, about half among children under five.
Somalia’s modern history includes an even graver warning.
A late and uneven humanitarian response to the 2011 famine resulted in an estimated 260,000 deaths.
“In 2022, WFP showed that when we have the resources, we can scale up quickly and reach people at the very moment they need us most,” Smith said.
“Today, we’re facing that critical moment again.”
Strained system
Conditions on the ground have grown increasingly desperate as Somalia moves through the harsh January-to-March “Jilaal” dry season.
Rural pastoralist communities report massive livestock deaths, wiping out a crucial source of income in a country where agriculture underpins the economy.
Unable to survive in rural areas, hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes, adding to a large internally displaced population living in makeshift camps on the outskirts of major cities.
Climate monitors say the country is entering the crucial “Gu” rainy season under significant stress after the failure of the late 2025 rains.
Experts warn that even if upcoming rainfall is near normal, exceptionally hot conditions and depleted seed stocks will delay any meaningful recovery.
The protracted conflict with the Al-Shabaab militant group is compounding the climate shock.
Ongoing violence continues to disrupt livelihoods, drive displacement and restrict humanitarian access in many parts of the country.
Meanwhile, the broader humanitarian system is under unprecedented strain as donor nations juggle competing global crises.
Somalia’s 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan requires $852 million to target 2.4 million people — less than half of those assessed to be in need.
WFP says it has teams on the ground and the capacity to push back extreme hunger again, but warns the window to act is closing.
If WFP’s already reduced assistance ends, Smith said, “the humanitarian, security, and economic consequences will be devastating.”
He added that the effects would be felt far beyond Somalia’s borders, potentially fuelling displacement and instability across the wider Horn of Africa.
“WFP and partners are ready to deliver, but we need urgent support to avoid a preventable catastrophe,” Smith said.
