MOGADISHU (Reuters) – The food insecurity and acute malnutrition situation in Somalia has not reached “IPC phase 5 Famine” levels between October and December 2022, U.N. agencies and aid groups said on Tuesday.
The assessment was issued by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which sets the global standard for determining the severity of food crises.
“The underlying crisis however has not improved and even more appalling outcomes are only temporarily averted,” the IPC said. “Prolonged extreme conditions have resulted in massive population displacement and excess cumulative deaths.”
Humanitarian organisations have warned for months that parts of Somalia’s Bay region were on the verge of famine because of the impact of a two-year drought, compounded by rising global grain prices and a long-running Islamist insurgency.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya; Writing by Sofia Christensen and Alexander Winning; Editing by James Macharia Chege)
