Famine in Somalia: lessons to learn from past experiences
Since 1990 the world’s famines have been classified as small – with the glaring exceptions of Somalia in 1991-92 and 2010-12. Now the UN’s World Food Programme says that nearly seven million Somalis face not being able to find enough food in the last months of 2022.
Baidoa and Burhakaba districts in Somalia’s Bay region face the highest level of famine, unless adequate food aid arrives. Southern Somalia’s crisis threatens to replicate what happened in 1991-92 and 2010-12, when famine caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. There are lessons we can learn from what happened before.