Poor rain and trade ban affecting food security

Enforcement of travel restrictions and a ban on trade across the Kenya/Somalia border, coupled with a prolonged drought, has created a food security crisis particularly in the southern Gedo Region of Somalia, the monthly report of the European Union-funded and FAO-implemented Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) issued on Thursday warns. Food security has worsened in the last four to six weeks. The livelihoods of 80 percent of the population have become unsustainable, along with rapidly increasing malnutrition, deaths of livestock, and whole villages moving to the main towns like Luuq. While NGOs, such as CARE and Action contre la faim (ACF), continued to provide targeted food assistance and support therapeutic and supplementary feeding programmes, funding was a constraint, FSAU said. The forecast for the coming 'deyr' season (short rains) is varied. The southwest was expected to receive below-normal (45 percent probability) to near-normal (35 percent probability) rainfall in the coming October to December season. The coastal regions can expect near-normal to below-normal rainfall, but prospects seem better for the central and northern regions. According to FSAU, the increased likelihood of below-normal rainfall in the southern Bay, Bakol, Gedo and Hiran regions during September to December gives cause for concern. The Bari, Nugal, Sanag regions in the northeast, and Juba and Shabelle in the southeast have received little rain, but livestock still had some feed.