Drought threatens thousands of nomads

The lives of thousands of people and their livestock in northern Somalia are threatened by a four-year drought, and they are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, the UN has warned.

According to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs-Somalia (OCHA-S), more than 90,000 of the 650,000 people in the Sool Plateau are facing starvation.

"The current drought in Sool Plateau and Gebi Valley, Somalia, is the worst in living memory, according to a recent inter-agency assessment of 10 villages and other sites in the area," OCHA said. "For four years, rains have either partially or completely failed."

"The situation will certainly continue to deteriorate," Kelly David-Toweh, the deputy chief of the OCHA-S, told IRIN on Monday.

A press statement issued by the UN agency said that the mortality rate of camels - the area's economic mainstay - was over 80 percent, while the surviving camels were failing to reproduce. "Milk production had plummeted and the drought-induced infertility meant that the herds would not recover," OCHA-Somalia said.

"As a result, we will start to see large-scale migrations to urban areas, further livestock deaths and possibly even human deaths. To avert a serious humanitarian disaster, immediate assistance is required," David-Toweh stressed.