Somalia remains on emergency alert. FEWS NET and Somalia’s Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) will issue a new joint alert statement in early January, highlighting the following key points:

• Increasing instability in Mogadishu and surrounding areas resulted in the displacement of an additional 70,000 people this month, bringing the total estimated number of IDPs fleeing Mogadishu since February 2007 to 670,000.

• Continued displacement will lead to further deteriorations of the humanitarian situation, especially in the Shabelle and central regions, where host communities are already severely stressed, due to poor deyr (October to December) production, deteriorating rangeland conditions, rapidly increasing cereal prices and increasing insecurity.

• Deyr crop establishment in the south is normal in Juba, Bay, Gedo and the Shabelle regions (except for coastal rain-fed areas).