- Title: Somalia officials brief on drought as displaced families struggle to cope
- Date: 24th February 2026
- Summary: MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (FEBRUARY 20, 2026) (REUTERS) NEWLY DISPLACED COMMUNITY ELDER, IBRAHIM MOHAMED, STARTING CALL TO PRAYERS VARIOUS OF BELIEVERS DURING PRAYER MOHAMED CHANTING VARIOUS OF MEN PRAYING (SOUNDBITE) (Somali) NEWLY DISPLACED COMMUNITY ELDER, IBRAHIM MOHAMED, SAYING: "We had no choice but to leave our farms and animals behind, and now we're living on the edge
- Embargoed:
- Keywords: UN africa change climate displaced drought horn of ramadan
- Location: MOGADISHU, SOMALIA
- City: MOGADISHU, SOMALIA
- Country: Somalia
- Topics: Africa,Droughts,Disaster/Accidents
- Reuters ID: LVA001812424022026RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: About 6.5 million people in Somalia are facing acute hunger after prolonged drought, the government and United Nations agencies said on Tuesday (February 24), days after the U.N.’s largest humanitarian agency warned that its food and nutrition assistance could grind to a halt by April without fresh funding.
Somalia declared a national drought emergency in November after repeated seasons of poor rainfall. Other countries in the region have also been affected.
Somalia’s government and the United Nations said more than 1.8 million children are expected to suffer acute malnutrition.
Last week, the U.N. World Food Programme said 4.4 million people were facing acute hunger and that it had already cut assistance to just over 600,000 people, down from 2.2 million earlier this year.
The figures align with those of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the global standard for assessing the severity of food crises.
The drought has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, with many seeking shelter in camps in Mogadishu and other cities.
Hawo Abdi told Reuters she lost two children to illness after the drought devastated her home in the Bay region.
“When I saw the suffering getting worse, I fled my home and came to the outskirts of Mogadishu,” she said from her shelter outside the capital.
While rainfall between April and June could bring some relief, around 5.5 million people are expected to remain at crisis levels or worse, including 1.6 million facing emergency conditions, the government and the United Nations said.
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