Reporters from Bilan, an all-female media team based in Mogadishu, visited different areas of Somalia to find out how the crisis has hit communities
• ‘Overlapping shocks’ undoing efforts to end hunger in Africa, UN warns
Famine has come to Somalia. While there has been no official declaration, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said last week: “I have no doubt that we are seeing famine on our watch in Somalia.” In an interview with Al Jazeera, he decried the injustice of the climate crisis-induced disaster. “Nobody in Somalia is responsible for the catastrophe – this fourth failed rainy season, this fifth and sixth to come.”
A famine in 2011 killed nearly 260,000 people in Somalia, and 100,000 of those people died before famine was officially declared. The same is happening again – and there are fears that it will be worse this time. Griffiths warned that people left behind could be in even more desperate situations than those who have managed to reach camps for the internally displaced. “When we get to them we will see scenes that will make the current images we are seeing look pale,” he said.
Nimo Hassan Sagaar, who lost one of her eight children to malnutrition on the journey to the El-Jaalle camp. Photograph: Kiin Hassan Fakat
