An internally displaced family prepare breakfast outside their makeshift shelter during a visit by World Food Programme’s Assistant Executive Director for Programme Operations, Matthew Hollingworth (not in the photo), to assess the knock on effects from the escalation in the Middle East, alongside drought and sharp cuts in humanitarian funding that are worsening hunger, in Kahda district of Mogadishu, Somalia May 7, 2026. Image@ REUTERS/Feisal Omar
The United Nations World Food Programme has sounded the alarm over a worsening hunger emergency in Somalia, warning that without an urgent injection of funds, it could be compelled to suspend all humanitarian operations in the country as early as July.
Nearly one in three Somalis — some 6 million people — are currently experiencing acute hunger, while 1.9 million children are acutely malnourished, making Somalia one of the world’s most critical nutrition emergencies. “Somalia faces a really severe malnutrition crisis and is one of the biggest malnutrition hotspots in the world,” said Matthew Hollingworth, WFP assistant executive director for programme operations, speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Rome.
The crisis is being driven by a confluence of factors: successive failed rain seasons have devastated crops and livestock across large swathes of the country, while entrenched conflict and insecurity continue to displace communities and block access to food. Somalia’s security landscape remains deeply fractured, with the Al-Shabaab Islamist militant group waging a long-running insurgency against the federal government, compounded by unresolved political disputes between Mogadishu and regional administrations over power-sharing and security arrangements.
Compounding the emergency, global aid funding has been severely squeezed — partly as a result of cuts triggered by the war involving Iran — leaving humanitarian agencies without the resources to mount an adequate response. The WFP, which manages 90% of Somalia’s food security response, has already been forced to scale back the number of people it can reach from 2 million to just 500,000. Without fresh financing, Hollingworth warned, even that reduced operation could shut down entirely by July.
Observers note that Somalia’s current trajectory bears an unsettling resemblance to 2022, when the country stood on the precipice of famine following a prolonged drought. The critical difference this time, the WFP cautioned, is that aid agencies simply lack the financial firepower to intervene at the scale required.
Supply chain disruptions linked to the Middle East conflict are further hobbling the response. The WFP said Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food — a high-calorie paste that is the primary treatment for severe acute malnutrition in children — is facing delivery delays of up to 40 days, threatening to leave the most vulnerable without life-saving nutrition at a critical moment.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah