Somalia faces another hunger crisis and the UN food agency head says it
has far less funds to help
[August 21, 2026]
By OMAR FARUK
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Six million people in Somalia are facing acute
food insecurity while the World Food Program has only a tenth of the
resources it had in 2022 when it helped avert famine in the drought- and
conflict-stricken East African nation, the head of the U.N. agency told
The Associated Press.
“We can only do the bare minimum,” WFP acting executive director Carl
Skau said Wednesday during a visit to a nutrition center on the
outskirts of the capital, Mogadishu. “We’re only providing these
nutrition supplies to the children that are really the worst hit.”
The reduced funds, because of cuts in international aid by donors and
the redirection of resources to other humanitarian crises, meant that
the WFP is unable to expand its assistance in Somalia, Skau said.
Millions of people at risk but far less aid
The WFP projects that 1.9 million children under age 5 in the country
will suffer acute malnutrition this year, including nearly 500,000 who
will require urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition. Overall,
around 30% of the population faces critical levels of food insecurity,
the U.N. has said.
“We had 10 times more resources than now,” Skau said of the 2022 hunger
emergency that was caused by a prolonged drought. “We were able to step
in, and we prevented a famine here in Somalia."
“We know what’s going on, we have the capacity, we have the experience
of dealing with this. We just need the resources now to do it.”
The consequences of the current food shortage, which is also a result of
drought, conflict and the displacement of people, are seen at the
Feynuus Health Center in Mogadishu’s Kahda district. Dozens of women
carrying babies waited beneath a large tree or crowded along the veranda
of the corrugated-metal facility seeking help.
Inside, health workers placed children in a blue weighing sling,
screened them for malnutrition, and distributed therapeutic food.
One desperate mother tells her story
Halima Mohamed Hassan, a mother of six, had walked nearly 3 kilometers
(2 miles) carrying her malnourished 4-year-old child. She is pregnant,
but said she hadn't eaten for two days. Her last meal was plain rice.
Health workers treated the child she brought with a special
nutrient-dense food, while Hassan said that her other children were also
malnourished, but she wasn't able to bring them to the center.
“I could not carry all of them,” she said.
Hassan fled the Lower Shabelle region four months ago after her husband
died of malnutrition, she said. Food and water became scarce, and
conflict made it increasingly dangerous for the family to stay.
She and her children walked for four nights before reaching a camp for
internally displaced people on Mogadishu’s outskirts.
Hassan now shares a makeshift shelter with her widowed mother and her
mother's four other children. The two women look for occasional work
washing clothes in nearby neighborhoods to feed their household of 12.
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A child is weighed at Feynuus Nutrition Centre on the outskirts of
the capital, Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026. (AP
Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
A health center tries its best to help
The Feynuus center receives between 250 and 350 patients daily,
mainly displaced women and children from regions outside Mogadishu,
said Abdirahman Barkhad, program director of Youth Link Somalia,
which operates the center.
Barkhad said that about 10 nearby health and nutrition centers had
closed because of a reduction in humanitarian funding, increasing
pressure on those that remain.
“We have witnessed children collapsing, because their families do
not have enough food,” he said.
Mohamud Moallim Abdulle, commissioner of the Somali Disaster
Management Agency, described the country’s food situation as
“extremely alarming.”
He said that an estimated 1.85 million children are malnourished,
while around 6 million people are affected by drought, and 2 million
urgently need assistance.
They don’t know where their next meal is
Skau said that mothers he met this week in the town of Burhakaba
described drought, insecurity, and also rising food prices as the
main drivers of the crisis. Some had lost their crops and fled their
homes. Others walked for three or four hours to reach health
facilities, because aid workers couldn't reach them.
“I spoke to women with eight to 10 children,” Skau said. “They don’t
know where the next meal is going to come from.”
Insecurity, with Somalia battling a 20-year-long insurgency by the
al-Shabab militant group, also makes humanitarian operations more
expensive. WFP must use aircraft in areas where staff and supplies
can't travel safely by road, and some communities are inaccessible,
Skau said.
He said that conflict in the Middle East was adding to the pressure
by driving up fuel and food prices, limiting agricultural supplies,
and drawing funding toward other emergencies.
After her child received some food at the center, Hassan began the
walk back to the camp they live in. Her five other children were
still waiting and hungry, she said, and she would have to return
with them one at a time.
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