Somalia among Climate Crisis nations with 135% Surge in Child Hunger, report says

In a stark revelation, Save the Children’s latest data analysis unveils that Somalia faces the dual challenge of consecutive failed rainy seasons and impending mass flooding thereby contributing to more than 27 million children faced with hunger and malnutrition due to extreme weather events in 2022, marking a staggering 135% increase from the previous year.

The alarming findings precede the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) on climate change.

The report underscores that children comprised nearly half of the 57 million individuals thrust into acute food insecurity or worse across 12 nations grappling with the fallout of extreme weather.

The Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) scale, a monitoring system spanning 58 countries, provided the basis for this distressing revelation.

Over the past five years, the IPC estimates a nearly twofold rise in the number of people confronting hunger in regions where extreme weather events precipitated food crises, surging from approximately 29 million in 2018 to a staggering 57 million in 2022.

The epicenter of this crisis primarily rests in the Horn of Africa, with Ethiopia and Somalia accounting for half of the afflicted 27 million children.

Save the Children identifies Iraq, Pakistan, and Somalia among the 12 countries where weather extremes wielded the greatest impact on hunger in 2022.

Somalia, persistently on the frontline of the climate crisis, faces the dual challenge of consecutive failed rainy seasons and impending mass flooding.

Recent heavy rains and floods have displaced around 650,000 people, half of them children, severing families from essential resources like food and medical care.

As COP28 approaches, Save the Children’s findings serve as a poignant call to action, urging global leaders to address the interconnected crises of climate change, hunger, and child welfare.

The repercussions of inaction are starkly evident, with millions of children caught in the devastating crossfire of extreme weather events and food insecurity.