2017 Somali drought
In 2017 a drought ravaged Somalia that has left more than 6 million people, or half the country's population, facing food shortages with several water supplies becoming undrinkable due to the possibility of infection.
According to the Humanitarian Information Unit of the U.S. Government, over 2.9 million people in Somalia face crisis or emergency level acute food insecurity and need emergency food aid, as a result of below average to failed rains in many areas in 2016 that reduced crop production and harmed livestock. Somalia is currently facing its seventh consecutively poor harvest and food stability is a major issue. In the April–June rainy season little to no rainfall occurred across much of Somalia in April, but rain has begun and is forecasted in May. Lack of potable water has accelerated an acute watery diarrhea-cholera outbreak with an estimated 32,000 cases reported since the beginning of the year. 1.4 million children are projected to need treatment for acute malnutrition in 2017, according to the UN Children's Fund. FEWS NET expects 2.9 million people will remain in crisis and emergency levels of acute food insecurity through at least June 2017. In March 2017, 1.75 million people received international food assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
An estimated 1.1 million IDPs currently live in Somalia, and at least 548,000 additional people have been displaced since November 2016 due to the drought. Most people displaced by drought left rural parts of Bay, Lower Shabelle, and Sool and settled in urban areas such as Mogadishu and Baidoa. Displacement numbers continue to rise as more people leave their homes and displacement monitoring increases. IOM and other UN agencies estimate that the number of IDPs, a highly vulnerable group in Somalia, will rise to 3 million by June if the April–June rains are below average or fail entirely. Additionally, since January 2016, about 56,000 former Somali refugees have returned from Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp to Somalia through UNHCR's voluntary repatriation program and have settled in Gedo, Bay, Lower Jubba, and Banaadir.
Causes
Main causes of the drought and its impact are said to be instability, conflict and climate change with severe weather conditions potentially also playing a part. El Niño may be the drought's cause.Humanitarian situation
On 4 March, Somalia's prime minister Hassan Ali Khaire announced that at least 110 people died due to hunger and diarrhoea in Bay Region alone.The FAO Representative for Somalia, noted that the situation in many rural areas, particularly Bay, Puntland is starting to look "worryingly like the run-up to famine in 2010-2011".
The International Organization for Migration also warned that if "action is not taken immediately, early warning signals point towards a growing humanitarian crisis in Somalia of potentially catastrophic proportions".
Hassan Saadi Noor, Save the Children's Country Director in Somalia stated:
In addition to drought and famine, diseases, such as cholera and measles were spread.
As of March 2017, more than 8,400 cases of the cholera had already been confirmed since January, which claimed 200 lives. On 20 March 2017, at least 26 people died from hunger in the semi-autonomous Jubaland region of southern Somalia, according to the state media.
As of July 2017, unclean drinking water had caused over 71,000 cases of cholera or severe diarrhea in 2017, resulting in nearly 1,100 deaths.