Humanitarian Emergency in Somalia

NAIROBI Dec 22/05 - SNS -- An estimated two million people in southern Somalia are facing an imminent humanitarian emergency and acute livelihood crisis over the next six months, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned.

"Somalia is experiencing a dangerous confluence of factors that almost certainly will lead to rapidly plummeting humanitarian conditions throughout southern regions," FAO said in a statement on Wednesday.

Nick Haan, the chief technical adviser for the Food Security and Analysis Unit (FSAU) Somalia, said that as the rainy season came to an end, it was clear that "the situation is going to evolve into a humanitarian emergency that could deteriorate as early as next month".

Haan said a poor rainy season, localised resource-based conflict, market disruption and internal tensions had all combined to create the current situation.

"Malnutrition levels as high as 20 percent in some areas of the south have reduced the resilience of the population to shocks," he added.

FSAU provides analysis of Somalia's food, nutrition and livelihood situation in order to promote food and livelihood security and is implemented by FAO.

"This year's main cereal harvest in July was the worst in a decade," FAO said.

The current projections, it noted, were in addition to ongoing humanitarian emergencies in Gedo and Lower Juba: "The failed Deyr (October-December rainy season) will both expand and make these crises more severe."

"Humanitarian actors have limited access to some areas most critically in need of assistance," it added. "Further, the upsurge of piracy off the Somali coast limits food supply lines for both commercial and humanitarian imports."

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Somalia, said it was imperative that the international community beefed up its operational capacity, particularly in southcentral Somalia, where access is difficult.

"There is an urgency to mobilise partners to address the existing need and to better approach the additional need that has been forecast," he said. "We are on the eve of a new humanitarian crisis."