World Tour: Drought in Somalia

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

World Tour. This week, a special report about the severe drought in Somalia that’s only getting worse.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A study last month from the United Nations and the Somali Health Ministry confirmed about 43,000 drought-related deaths last year in Somalia alone. It’s the longest dry spell on record for the East African country.

The death toll is also the first official count from a crippling lack of rain in the wider Horn of Africa region. WORLD’s Onize Ohikere explains what it’s like on the ground.

ONIZE OHIKERE: It’s a complicated situation - Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia are now on track to face a sixth consecutive failed rainy season. The United Nations and other global partners say Somalia has averted a formal famine declaration, but the condition on the ground is still pretty difficult. More than 6 million people are hungry in Somalia alone. Millions of livestock have died in a region where many rely on herding.

EICHER: The report estimates that 18,000 people will likely die in the first six months of this year, about 135 people each day. Kevin Mackey is World Vision’s National Director in Somalia. He visited some displacement camps in the city of Baidoa in Somalia’s South West State back in December. Survivors there shared heartbreaking stories.

KEVIN MACKEY: Children unable to keep up with their parents, parents unable to carry them, parents not having access to any carts, and then children ultimately succumbing to their weakened states and then having to be buried along the way. I think that’s a story that has happened many times over the past year.

EICHER: The drought is not the only factor fueling displacement and the growing needs.

OHIKERE: So flash floods have hit some parts of Somalia that were also affected by the drought. It might sound like a reprieve but the sudden heavy rainfall is destroying what little crops people managed to grow. And also displacing even more people.

Another point to note here is the fact that Somalia is also still in the throes of a three-decade conflict. The country’s civil war created a vacuum that empowered armed and nationalist groups and also allowed Islamist groups like al-Shabaab to thrive. These groups still control parts of the country.

Aid workers are saying these cut-off areas are not only masking the real toll of the ongoing drought and how dire the situation is, but also impacting how much help they can offer.

For instance, since February, fighting has flared between troops belonging to Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland and local militias in the northern Somali city of Las Anod.

REICHARD: Alyona Synenka is the regional Africa spokeswoman with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

ALYONA SYNENKO: We are working with the Somalia Red Crescent societies and we were providing emergency medical supplies to the hospitals, supporting ambulances. So It's been very difficult for people who have been squeezed between these catastrophes, one environmental and one man-made.

EICHER: World Vision’s Kevin Mackey says some of the hardest-hit drought regions are also under the control of al-Shabaab.

Last August, the Somali government launched an offensive against the terror group. By March, the military claimed it had killed more than 3,000 al-Shabaab insurgents and regained control of 70 towns and villages.

REICHARD: Mackey explains his team is finding creative ways to reach closed-off communities with urgent support.

The United Nations is also drumming up more support for the country. During a visit yesterday to Somalia, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the organization’s $2.6 billion appeal for Somalia is only 15 percent funded as he urged the international community to intervene.

Many other aid groups active in the country are making similar calls.

OHIKERE: At the heart of it, these groups responding are saying we don’t have time to wait for a formal famine declaration. People are already dying and losing their livelihoods. More attention has to shift to not just the emergency support, but also long-term efforts to strengthen community resilience. So we don’t end up here again.

EICHER: Onize Ohikere is WORLD’s Africa reporter. If you’d like to read her article on famine in the Horn of Africa, we have a link in today’s transcript.

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