Somalia Drought Hits 6.5 Million With Hunger Crisis

A severe drought gripping Somalia has plunged 6.5 million people, or one-third of the population, into crisis levels of hunger, with experts warning it could rank among the worst in the country's history. In Puntland, a semiautonomous region in the north, pastoralists like 70-year-old Abdi Ahmed Farah have lost most of their livestock amid three years without steady rain, forcing families to survive on one meager meal a day.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported record-low production of staple crops maize and sorghum during the October-December rainy season. Rivers have dried up, crops have withered, and nearly a half-million children face severe acute malnutrition, exceeding levels seen in the 2011 and 2022 droughts, according to UNICEF. "2026 is the worst year on record for Somalia in terms of drought," said Hameed Nuru, the U.N. World Food Program director for the country. Children have begun dying as a result.

In Usgure village, home to 700 families, community leader Abshir Hirsi Ali described a collapsed local economy dependent on herders like Farah, who once owned 680 goats but now has 110 barely alive. "There is no market for my goats because they...