WFP has increased the number of people it aims to feed in Somalia this year to 1.2 million and appealed for urgent contributions of US$22.4 million to avoid a looming break in food supplies.

The rise to 1.2 million people, an increase of 200,000 over previous estimates, is the result of a dramatic deterioration in the Lower and Middle Shabelle regions of southern Somalia.

Long viewed as the country’s ‘breadbasket’, the area has recently suffered a variety of shocks – below normal Gu or long rains that ended in June, rising inflation, an influx of displaced people, insecurity, trade disruptions and worsening health conditions.

Vulnerable

“The Shabelle regions usually export food to other regions, but this year they cannot feed themselves so the most vulnerable require our help,” said WFP Somalia Country Director Peter Goossens.

“Also, families driven from Mogadishu by fighting need food for the coming months,” he said.

“Donors were extremely generous toward the people of Somalia in this tough year, and I appeal for that spirit to continue to help end the suffering of the growing number of weakest Somalis, mainly women and children. We cannot desert them in their time of need.”

Immediate needs

A recent nutrition survey confirmed acute malnutrition rates among children under five to be above the emergency threshold of 15 percent, with alarmingly high rates of severe acute malnutrition of more than 4 percent.

It said food, clean water, health services, shelter and sanitation were immediately needed.

WFP Somalia requires $22.4 million to buy 17,000 metric tons of food, and to refund internal loans of 14,000 metric tons. Without new contributions, food will start running out in October.

Cash useful

“It takes up to four months for food assistance to reach people in Somalia,” said Goossens. “So cash contributions are especially useful because we can then buy food regionally and help bridge the gaps.”

He warned that corn-soya blend would start running out in October and cereals in November.

WFP revised its requirements from its previous target of feeding one million people in the light of an assessment report in August by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Security Analysis Unit Somalia (FSAU).

It found that a sudden humanitarian emergency had hit more than 600,000 people in Lower and Middle Shabelle and the capital Mogadishu.

Worsening situation

FSAU found that the total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Somalia had increased since March from 1 million to 1.5 million because of the worsening situation in the Shabelle regions and despite some improvement in drought- and flood-affected regions.

FSAU forecast that Gu cereal production in southern Somalia would be the lowest since 1995.

The 1.2 million to be fed by WFP includes people who fled their homes in Mogadishu since April, recent returnees to Mogadishu and large section of the population in need of relief food assistance in the troubled south.

Of the total, one million are in southern and central Somalia. Another 225,000 displaced people are being supplied with food assistance by the International Committee of the Red Cross and CARE. The remaining 75,000 are not in immediate need of food assistance.

Marcus Prior
WFP/Nairobi
Tel +254-20-7622 336
Cell +254-733-528-912

Penny Ferguson
WFP/Nairobi
Tel. +254 20 7622 594
Cell. +254 735 700 041

Brenda Barton
Deputy Director
Communications
WFP/Rome
Tel. +39-06-65132602
Cell. +39-3472582217
(ISDN line available)

Gregory Barrow
WFP/London
Tel. +44-20-72409001
Cell. +44-7968-008474

Christiane Berthiaume
WFP/Geneva
Tel. +41-22-9178564
Cell. +41-792857304

Jennifer Parmelee
WFP/Washington
Tel. +1-202-6530010
Ext. 1149
Cell. +1-202-4223383

Heather Bourbeau
WFP/New York
Tel. +1-917-367-5070
Mob. +1-917690-6686,