SOMALIA: Over 55,000 Children at Risk of Illness and Death as Reduction of Foreign Aid Force Nutrition Centers to Close

BAIDOA, Somalia, (MAY 14, 2025) – At least 55,000 children supported by Save the Children in Somalia^[1] will lose access to life-saving nutrition services by June, as the reduction in foreign aid force 121 Save the Children-supported nutrition centers to close. 

Save the Children is the largest NGO provider of health and nutrition services to children in Somalia, providing support to some 260,000 children each year. However, changes to foreign aid commitments announced at the start of 2025 mean that over a quarter (27%) of Save the Children-supported health and nutrition facilities in Somalia will stop services in June, putting the lives of at least 55,000 children who would normally use those programs at risk.

The loss of critical funding, continued displacement due to attacks by armed groups and below-average rainfall are combining to push children deeper into a humanitarian emergency, said the aid agency. Children are already being impacted, with 1.8 million children in Somalia expected to face acute malnutrition this year, according to data from the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit,^[2] with 479,000 expected to face severe acute malnutrition, which, if not treated, can be deadly.

Baidoa in Somalia's south is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of drought and conflict, and currently hosts around 800,000 people who have been internally displaced. It is also one of the areas where Save the Children's nutrition services will be most impacted, with all of the organization's nutrition facilities in Baidoa set to close in June.

Fatima*, age 25, lives in a displacement camp in Baidoa. She fled her village after successive droughts damaged the family's crops and killed their livestock, leaving Fatima and her husband unable to feed their children. A Save the Children nutrition worker recently diagnosed her child, Fardowso*, aged 1, with severe acute malnutrition. Fardowso was provided with medicines and high-nutrient supplementary food at a Save the Children-supported health and nutrition center and is now starting to regain weight and recover.

Fatima said: "If we were not able to get medicines and nutrition support here, we would have no other option but to see our children dying in front of us. There is no other service here, so we would only see our children get progressively worse."

By the end of the rainy season in June, the clinics supported by Save the Children in Baidoa are expected to be stretched to breaking point. This is a time of year when hunger and malnutrition typically rise in Somalia, but terminated funding mean that 11% more children are expected to be severely malnourished than in 2024,^[3] while there will also be fewer facilities run by aid organizations to treat them.

Dr. Mustafa Mohammed works at a Save the Children-supported stabilization center in Baidoa, where children with severe acute malnutrition are given hydration drips and milk fortified with vitamins and a protein-rich peanut paste. Over 95% of children admitted to the center recover after treatment, and the center has already seen an increase in families seeking treatment as facilities elsewhere have been forced to shut.

"If our center closes, children such as these will be put into grave danger. There is nowhere else for these children to go," said Dr Mohammed.  

Save the Children's Country Director for Somalia, Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, said:

"It's frightening to imagine what the impact will be on Somalia, just a few months along the road, in a country where communities know all too well what extreme hunger – and even famine – feels like.

In communities such as Baidoa, we are doing what we can to ensure that life-saving services such as our nutrition programs can delay closing their doors for as long as possible, but we cannot do this indefinitely. Unless funding is found, I fear that we will see deadly consequences for children as these funding terminations intersect with years of recurrent drought and political violence. Not providing the funds that can help prevent extreme hunger is a political choice and one that needs to be reversed before it is too late for millions of children in Somalia."

Even before these latest foreign aid terminations, Somalia's humanitarian response has been chronically underfunded, while hunger has remained stubbornly high due to recurrent climate shocks such as below-average rainfall.

Save the Children has been working in Somalia and Somaliland since 1951 and has programs throughout the country which support children's healthcare, education and food needs. Last year, its work reached 3.2 million people, including 1.9 million children.

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Notes:

[1] According to a Save the Children internal analysis of impacted projects. The total children that could be affected due to funding cuts to Save the Children and other partners is at least 290,000.

[2] Somalia: Acute Malnutrition Projection Update for April - June 2025, https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159551/. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is the global scale to classify food and nutrition crises and in Somalia is led by The Food Security Analysis Unit (FSNAU) and partners including humanitarian response agencies and government.

[3] Based on a comparison of the number of children under five projected to be severely malnourished in 2025 (466,000), compared to the figure for the same period in 2024 (430,000), according to the IPC.

*Names changed for anonymity