Food assistance needed in northwest

Areas affected by drought in northwest Somalia should receive immediate food assistance over the next seven months, according to report by the Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU), an independent monitoring group managed by FAO. The FSAU had joined government and UN agency missions in an assessment of the areas concerned: Awdal, Togdheer and Sanaag, between 13 and 21 July. These areas also needed medical and veterinary services, and close food security monitoring for affected groups, the report added. According to the findings, Awdal had suffered from irregular and insufficient rains for the last two to three years. The dependable ‘hais’ rains of December to February had failed this year “worsening the situation in an already bad case”. Malnutrition was manifest, especially in children, and coping strategies were failing, the report warned. Borehole water has been reduced and the condition of livestock condition was poor, with weak animals being abandoned. Milk production was down by 60 percent and below-normal calving and conception rates had been reported, the FSAU said. The purchasing power of people was “very poor”, it added. In Togdheer region, Hawd pastoralists were affected by chronic water shortage after below-normal rains. The main drought-affected districts were Burco, Odweyne and Buuhodle, where there had been below-normal to poor rains, FSAU said. Common water points had become overcrowded and water prices were on the increase. Livestock has been “out-migrated” to neighbouring Ethiopia, and most poor households have split their families and spread over towns and villages with reduced herds, its report added. The FSAU warned that community support for drought affected people in Toghdeer was waning. In Sanaag region [an area contested between the self-declared stated of Somaliland in the northwest, and the autonomous region of Puntland in the northeast], El-Afweyn has been affected by floods which killed livestock and damaged agricultural land. However, the “general availability of water and lush pastures” meant the affected households were likely to cope with food insecurity until the next rains, the report added.