Multiple local Somali aid agencies appeal for funding to avert humanitarian crisis
NEW YORK – Nine domestic relief agencies on have appealed to the international community to increase humanitarian funding to help more than two million people in Somalia facing acute food shortages due to severe drought. The agencies made the appeal last Tuesday.
According to reports, the agencies which included “Save Somali Women and Children” cautioned the international community in a joint statement issued in Mogadishu that insecurity and intermittent rains are causing devastation in Somalia where 2.2 million people are facing Life-threatening hunger.
The agencies said an estimated 5.4 million people in Somalia are in need of humanitarian aid.
The director of Save Somali Women and Children, Amina Haji, said the massive spike in the number of people requiring humanitarian aid shows just how delicate the situation is for millions of Somalis.
“A huge injection of funding is urgently needed to save lives. We know early intervention is the best and most cost-effective way to save lives, particularly for women and children, who are always the most at risk,” Haji said.
According to the United Nations, the 2019 Gu rains (April-June) have falling below the expected amount of rainfall that the country normally expects, which means the country is facing a second consecutive below-average rainy season.
According to the UN, Somalia is still also recovering from the impact of the prolonged 2016-17 drought.
Two futile raining season and severe weather conditions during the dry Jilaal season (January-March) has led to water scarcity, crop disaster and a fast-tracked deterioration in livestock productivity, according to the UN.
The agencies which maintained that a massive scaled-up response is urgently needed to forfend the humanitarian crisis, warned that the condition is awful and is expected to get worse in coming months.
“We must collectively step up to the challenge with context specific, long-term and locally driven solutions to problems facing Somalis,” the organizations added.
