Geneva: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) issued a warning on Friday about the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Somalia as severe funding shortfalls threaten to bring life-saving food and nutrition programmes to an end within weeks.
According to Kuwait News Agency, WFP Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response Ross Smith highlighted that a quarter of the population in Somalia, approximately 4.4 million people, are facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, with nearly one million experiencing severe hunger. Smith also noted that nearly two million children are suffering from acute malnutrition, with more than 400,000 of them experiencing severe acute malnutrition. Furthermore, close to half a million people have been displaced in the past five months alone.
Smith emphasized that Somalia is encountering one of the "most complex hunger crises" in recent years, driven by two consecutive failed rainy seasons, ongoing conflict, and declining humanitarian funding. He stressed the urgent need for immediate humanitarian financing to ensure the continuation of WFP's life-saving operations, warning that without immediate food support, conditions will deteriorate rapidly, particularly for women and children.
The severe funding shortfall has already forced WFP to reduce the number of people receiving emergency food assistance from 2.2 million at the beginning of 2025 to just over 600,000, equating to only one in seven people in need of food assistance to survive. Nutrition programmes have also been scaled back from supporting nearly 400,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women and children in October 2025 to just 90,000 in December.
Smith noted that the situation is worsening at an alarming pace, with many families having lost their livelihoods and being pushed to the brink of famine, especially following the declaration of a national drought emergency. This has led to severe water shortages, widespread crop and livestock losses, and large-scale displacement.
He pointed out that WFP is the largest humanitarian agency operating in Somalia and recalled that in 2022, with support from donors, partners, and the government, the organization scaled up operations to reach record numbers of people in need, helping to avert famine at that time. Smith underscored that WFP urgently requires 95 million dollars to continue supporting the most affected populations between March and August 2026, warning that the agency may be forced to suspend its humanitarian assistance by April if the required funding is not secured.