After four seasons of drought, Somalia will be hit with a famine between October and December according to the U.N. More than 7.1 million people – half of Somalia’s population – are in need of food assistance right now.

However it is not yet to be called a famine due to statistical requirements and the purview of a country’s government and the U.N.’s agencies.

A famine would be designated if 20 percent of households in an area face extreme lack of food, if 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition and if at least two out of every 10,000 are dying each day.

Reaching all of those numbers is a hard standard to meet. Therefore, declaring famine is very hard, which can often mean that the global awareness of the problem is brought too late.

The Washington Post reports, when Somalia last faced a famine in 2011 there was a lot of criticism of how the famine declaration came far too late and now the same mistake is being repeated. 

Smaller warning signs of the predicted upcoming famine started already back in April and through the summer of 2022 U.N. agencies have raised the alarm of hunger and the lack of international support. According to several aid workers Somalia was hesitant to declare a famine because it was politically inconvenient seeing that the government came to power in May. 

Now motivated by Somalia’s struggle, international attention has led the US to provide $706 million in drought assistance, but there is still a long way to stop the crisis Somalia is faced with right now, as stated in The Wall Street Journal. 

The famine this year is being affected by other factors than just the weather. According to The Washington Post, 90 percent of the wheat in Somalia is sourced from Russia and Ukraine before the war. Not only is there less wheat now, but the prices have been driven up significantly. In addition, the threat from Al Shabab (a group linked to Al Qaeda) has grown. There have been seen more attacks from them now and several trucks have been burned carrying food relief. 

The U.N. believes Somalia has had a lack of global attention. With all the things they are facing, the U.N. feel it is important to build a long-term system to withstand the severe effects of the weather. The Somalia director of Mercy Corps, Duad Jiran, says “Continuing drought and starvation are the future if we do not protect the planet from a changing climate and help the communities hit first and hardest, like those in Somalia, mitigate and adapt.”