Mogadishu, Somalia — The World Food Program (WFP) has said it requires 364 million U.S. dollars in net funding across all activities to scale up humanitarian assistance in Somalia between December 2023 and May 2024.
The WFP said in its latest report released on Tuesday night that out of the figure, its urgent funding gap for life-saving humanitarian relief and nutrition assistance is 315.5 million dollars. “In 2023, an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition, with 331,000 children likely to face life-threatening severe malnutrition.”
According to the WFP, while Somalia still suffers the aftereffects of drought, the onset of El Nino-induced floods added to the burden of the communities along the Juba and Shabelle rivers in southern Somalia, causing devastating impacts across numerous communities.
According to the Somali Disaster Management Agency, 2.4 million people are affected by heavy rains and subsequent floods, with 1.2 million displaced and 118 lives lost.
The UN food agency said impassable roads and inaccessible airstrips due to floods have caused difficulties reaching isolated flood-affected communities.
It said this situation has heightened reliance on boats and helicopter transportation for delivering commodities to these isolated areas.
The UN food agency said such devastating floods have come at a time when hunger levels are already high in Somalia, where 4.3 million people face crisis-level or worse food insecurity between October and December 2023, with a million facing emergency-level hunger.