Northern Somali Faces Food Shortage

NAIROBI - Feb 26/04 - IRIN -- More than 200,000 people in Somalia's northern and central regions face extreme food shortages due to a prolonged drought considered the worst in 30 years, a new report has warned.

Several years of below-normal rainfall have caused "extreme stress" in the pastoral areas in those areas, leading to massive deaths of livestock and loss of income from sales of milk and meat, according to the report, jointly produced by the UN-EU Food Security Assessment Unit and USAID's Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

Between 20% and 80% of livestock in these regions had died during the years of drought, leading to sharp increases in the cost of trucked water and mounting indebtedness. For most of the population, this has meant the inability to access food, the report said.

About 89,100 people (10%) of the population of the affected districts, already constituted a humanitarian emergency. A further 113,900 were considered to be experiencing a livelihood crisis, the report stated.

The worst-affected area, was the Sool Plateau in the north, where an estimated 64,000 people were experiencing a humanitarian emergency, and another 28,600 were affected by a livelihood crisis. "Field reports indicate highly dynamic pastoral movements throughout the Sool Plateau area, as pastoralists search for pasture and water for their remaining animals," said the report.

Other regions affected included Togdheer, Lower Nugal, and the central areas. In the central area, the food vulnerability situation was exacerbated by civil insecurity, particularly in the villages of Herale and Hurshe (in Galagadud Region).

Copyright (c) 2004 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

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