Drought emergency to last until December

The prevailing rainy season will offer little solace to communities in southern Somalia who have lost everything to the prolonged regional drought, according to a food-security agency.

"Very high levels of asset loss and financial indebtedness ensure that the effects of the crisis will continue into the next season, and full recovery could take several years," said the United Nations Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSAU) on Friday. Rainfall has also been insufficient thus far in several central and northern regions, meaning that acute food and livelihood crisis would persist there as well, FSAU reported.

"There are large areas in Gedo, Bakol, and Hiran that will have a below normal [rainy] season; as well as parts of Bay, Lower Shabelle, the Jubas, Galgadud, Toghdeer, Sool, Sanaag, and Bari. The overall cereal crop harvest is projected to be below normal this season due to poor rains in some key cropping areas, outbreaks of army worm, localized flooding, and insufficient agricultural inputs," the agency said.

FSAU called for continued humanitarian relief in the south until the next ‘deyr’ (October-December) rainy season and increased attention to livelihood support, in the form of livestock programmes, cash assistance and agricultural rehabilitation in the south and parts of central and northern regions.

The organisation also said greater attention should be paid to the underlying causes of food insecurity in Somalia, including environmental degradation, the economic drain caused by the consumption of ‘khat’ (a local plant with narcotic properties) and insecurity. Ongoing factional fighting in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, was also disrupting market supplies throughout southern Somalia, driving commodity prices up by 20 percent to 30 percent amid fears that that the conflict could spread.

"The resilience of the Somali people is truly admirable, but consecutive shocks combined with prolonged lack of investment in basic development continue to knock their wellbeing lower and lower," said Nicholas Haan, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation chief technical advisor to the FSAU. "At what point will the Somali people decide and be able to turn this tragic downward spiral around?"