Portrait of a boy at the Somali Center for Orphans, Disabled and Homeless Children in Taleeh, Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. The center welcomes children who were orphaned by the war and who previously lived on the streets.
The country is facing a new food disaster, 15 years after suffering one of the worst famines in the country, which left almost 260,000 dead, half of which were children, the organization Save the Children warned this Tuesday.
In a report titled ““, the non-governmental organization (NGO) revealed how the collapse of international funding for Somalia in 2025 could soon lead to “catastrophic results” never seen before since the 2011 famine.
“The crisis is the result of a disastrous combination of protracted conflict and accelerating climate impacts, exacerbated by the decision to cut aid to historically low levels in 2025,” Save the Children Somalia director Mohamud Mohamed Hassan said in a statement.
Hassan lamented the “predictable and devastating” consequences of reduced funding in a country where more than 6.5 million people, that is, almost one in three inhabitants, face acute food insecurity.
More than 1.84 million children under the age of five are at risk of acute malnutrition, according to the Integrated Food Security Stage Classification (IPC), a tool that measures the severity of food security situations in five stages, from best to worst.
O number of people suffering from acute food insecurity has doubled since 2025when IPC projections indicated that 3.4 million people faced this situation. While in 2024 the Somali Humanitarian Response Plan had 57.7% funding, in April 2026 this percentage dropped to 15%. Consequently, food services were drastically reduced, including the closure of more than 300 nutrition centers across the country.
“When aid increases, lives are saved; when it disappears, childhood is lost“, emphasized Hassan.
He had been “fighting hunger for three years” for 15 years.
The report also highlighted the “extraordinary resilience” of children and their families in the face of repeated food crises, droughts, conflicts and disease outbreaks.
Thanks to humanitarian aid, girls like 15-year-old Fazia now enjoy free education, even though budget cuts have left her and her family “struggling with hunger for the past three years,” she told the NGO.
“Now water is scarce and the drought is extreme. Cattle are dying due to lack of water. Food is also scarce and the drought has affected us deeply,” he added.
The situation is worsened by recent outbreaks of acute watery diarrhea, cholera, measles and diphtheria in areas of the south and center of the country, together with the increase in fuel prices caused by.
In addition to the humanitarian crisis, Somalia lives in state of conflict and chaos since 1991when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was deposed, leaving the country without an effective government and in the hands of Islamist militias and warlords.
