Aid cuts, drought, war push Somalis to despair

Maryam, 46, watched her goats starve and her crops fail. She buried two of her children before giving up hope and seeking help from international aid agencies in southern Somalia. She left her village with her six remaining children, making a long journey along the Jubba River to one of the makeshift settlements on the outskirts of Kismayo, capital of Jubbaland state.

Three consecutive failed rainy seasons have doubled malnutrition rates in Somalia. Maryam is one of more than 300,000 Somalis forced to flee their homes since January alone. Many international organizations have suspended operations at the internally displaced persons camp in Kismayo, largely due to aid cuts ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump last year.

"We are hungry. We need care and help," Maryam said. Haunted by memories of children who died with bloated stomachs, she said she will not return to her village because it is under the control of the al-Qaeda-linked armed group al-Shabab. Fighters there have begun seizing scarce food supplies.

But the camp is not much better. In March alone, five children died of malnutrition, according to the camp manager. Since the early 1990s, Somalia has endured near-constant civil war, armed insurgencies, floods, and drought. This war-torn country is among the world's most vulnerable to climate change, which scientists say is driving more frequent and intense extreme weather events such as droughts and floods.

Recent foreign aid cuts have worsened the situation. "This has had a huge impact on our work," said Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, director of Save the Children in Somalia. More than 200 health centers and 400 schools have closed since last year. Farmers whose livestock and crops have been destroyed describe this as one of the worst droughts on record in a country where one-third of the population already lacked regular meals.

At a mobile health clinic supported by Save the Children — the only facility still serving many camps around Kismayo — a woman named Khadija tried to feed a high-calorie solution to her severely malnourished one-year-old daughter. She came to the camp after last year's drought killed her livestock, but here "we have nothing to eat," the 45-year-old said.

A hospital in Kismayo is the only facility in the region capable of treating the most severe malnutrition cases, but it is turning patients away due to a lack of space and staff. Every bed holds a starving child, some on ventilators with IV tubes in their frail arms. Patient numbers have tripled since last year, and the situation is deteriorating. The U.S.-Iran conflict has driven up fuel prices, affecting food and water supplies.

Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has been forced to repeatedly cut its Somalia program from $2.6 billion in 2023 to $852 million this year, especially after Washington reduced its contributions. So far, only 13% of this year's funding target has been met.

"It's a toxic mix of factors... Things are really, really desperate," Tom Fletcher, head of OCHA, told AFP in an interview last week. "We are constantly forced to choose which lives to save and which lives not to save."