UN: 22 million residents of the Somali Peninsula are threatened by famine due to drought
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Approximately 22 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are on the verge of starvation due to years of drought. Such a statement was made on Friday at the UN World Food Program (WFP).
A WFP press release says that since the beginning of 2022, an additional 9 million people “fell into severe food insecurity across Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia.” In total, “22 million people face the problem of providing themselves with sufficient food.”
In countries located in the Horn of Africa (Somalia) peninsula, according to WFP, livestock are dying due to drought, and people are experiencing acute water shortages. 1.1 million people were forced to leave their homes.
It is noted that people living there “have been waiting for years for rain, but they can no longer wait for life-saving food aid.”
WFP Director David Beasley urged the world to “take action now to protect the most vulnerable from the threat of mass starvation.
The drought in the region, as stated by the WFP, will continue in the coming months. They recalled that the organization warned at the beginning of the year that 13 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia were on the verge of starvation. But when the rains did not come to the region and by the middle of the year, the number of people in need of food increased to 20 million, and then to twenty-two.
Their number, according to the WFP, “will grow, and the severity of the hunger problem will be aggravated if the next rainy season does not help” and if people do not receive humanitarian assistance.
To meet the growing needs of the local population in the next six months, taking into account the forecast of continued drought, an additional $ 418 million is needed to help the inhabitants of the Somali Peninsula
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