Famine spreads further in Somalia

Press release from The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations :

" 5 September 2011, Nairobi/Rome : FAO today called for increased efforts to stem the food crisis in the Horn of Africa as famine spread to a sixth area of Somalia, threatening 750 000 people with starving to death in the next four months.

Latest data released today by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSNAU), which is managed by FAO in close collaboration with USAID's Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), indicated that famine has spread to Bay region, one of Somalia's most productive areas. Five other regions had previously been declared in a state of famine.

Together with ongoing crises in the rest of the country, the number of Somalis in need of humanitarian assistance has increased from 2.4 million to 4 million in the last eight months, with 3 million of them in the country's south.

Bleak picture

"Though these figures paint a bleak picture for Somalia, there is a window of opportunity for the humanitarian community to stop and reverse this undesirable trend by supporting farmers and herders in addition to other emergency interventions," Luca Alinovi, FAO's Officer in Charge for Somalia, told a press conference in Nairobi.

Bay region is a breadbasket for Somalia, producing over 80 percent of the country's sorghum. Record levels of acute malnutrition have been registered there, with 58 percent of children under five acutely malnourished, and a crude death of more than two deaths per 10 000 per day.

Bay region joins five other areas hit by famine including Bakool agropastoral communities in Lower Shabelle region, the agropastoral areas of Balcad and Cadale districts of Middle Shabelle, the Afgoye corridor IDP settlement, and the Mogadishu IDP community."