Half a million children’s lives are at risk from a looming famine in Somalia, according to the United Nations – that’s more than in any country worldwide this century. | Reuters
One in five Africans – a record 278 million people – were already facing hunger in 2021, according to data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization . It says the situation has worsened.
Here, alongside Isak’s story, are five reasons Africa is suffering from the worst food crisis ever recorded:East Africa has missed four consecutive rainy seasons, the worst drought in 40 years, Michael Dunford, the WFP’s East Africa director said.ADVERTISEMENT The lack of rainfall has caused crops to fail. In northern Kenya, pastoralists dig deeper and deeper in search of water for their livestock. Traditional Maasai herders, whose culture revolves around their cows, face the choice of selling them or watching them die.
“You have drought in some places, then you have floods in some places,” he said. “That is a real shift.”Isak’s hometown, Dinsoor, is about 370 km from the capital in Somalia’s Bay region. In June, she and her husband and children set out on foot, hoping to escape drought. The journey to Mogadishu took 12 days.They walked. “We fled in the hope of saving our children,” she said, seated on a hospital bed with her two girls – Nasib, 4, and Fardawsa, 3 – and an infant on her back.
The number of displaced people in Africa has tripled over the past decade to a record 36 million in 2022, according to U.N. data. That represents almost half the displaced people in the world. Most were displaced internally within their own countries by conflict. They were weak and ran fevers, their legs bowed and limbs swelled. They began to cough and struggled to breathe.
European countries in particular have cut aid in Africa. European governments contributed 21% of humanitarian relief aid to African countries in 2022, down 16 percentage points since 2018. Disruptions caused by that war have also provoked a fertiliser shortage. Where stocks are available, prices have risen beyond the means of many farmers. The result will be smaller harvests next year: In West Africa, the WFP estimates cereal production could fall 20%.“Sometimes mothers bring us dead children,” said Farhia Moahmud Jama, head nurse at the paediatric emergency unit. “And they don’t know they’re dead.
After years of borrowing, countries are struggling to service their debts. According to the IMF, 19 of sub-Saharan Africa’s 35 low-income countries are in debt distress – where a government is unable to fulfil its financial obligations and debt restructuring is required – or at high risk of it. Globally, prices of cereals, dairy, meat, vegetable oils and sugar climbed over 23% in 2021, the fastest in more than a decade, according to an index from the FAO.
The medics couldn’t find a vein on her hands, so they transfused the blood through a vein in her head.African governments have done little to prevent food crises from recurring. Agriculture makes up nearly 20% of Africa’s GDP and more than half of Africans work in the sector, according to the World Bank. Most of this is low-productivity subsistence farming, and the region is a net importer of staples including wheat, palm oil and rice, the FAO says.
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