SOMALIA: Child admissions for severe malnutrition nearly triple in six months

BAIDOA, Somalia (July 29, 2026) – The number of children receiving treatment for severe malnutrition in Save the Children programs in Baidoa, Somalia, has nearly tripled in six months.^[1]

Health care workers at Save the Children's Baidoa stabilization centers treated 400 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition with other medical complications in June – nearly three times as many as the 143 admitted in January.

In total, the stabilization center treated 1,405 children between January and June 2026, a 177% increase compared with the 507 children treated a year ago.

Poor rainfall, reduced harvests, livestock losses, reduced foreign aid, high food prices, and weaker household purchasing power is driving this worsening hunger crisis in Baidoa.

The increase in malnutrition comes as Somalia marks 15 years since a famine was declared 20 July 2011, killing over 250,000 people, about half of them children under five, according to the U.N.

Admissions to the center’s outpatient program, which treats moderate acute malnutrition cases also saw a sharp 268% increase in the first four months of the year. However, stock-outs of ready-to-use therapeutic food and other essential supplies due to aid cuts and the conflict in the Middle East has meant that families are no longer able to receive treatment and many have stopped going to the center, leading to a sharp decline in admissions from April onwards.^[2]

Aid organizations are also grappling with steep funding shortfalls, with more than 300 nutrition facilities reportedly closed across Somalia this year,^[3] reducing access to treatment for vulnerable children and families. This has caused a dangerous decline in the number of people receiving humanitarian assistance, with only 12% of people in need being reached.^[4]

In May, data from the global hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), showed that about half of children under five in Somalia are facing acute malnutrition.

As well as hunger, disease outbreaks are multiplying the risks for children in Somalia, with the outbreaks of measles, cholera and acute watery diarrhea worsening malnutrition among children. The Federal Government of Somalia declared a drought emergency in November 2025, its first such declaration since the country narrowly averted famine in 2022.

Aisha*, 27, whose two-year-old daughter Ayan* was treated for severe acute malnutrition at the center after the family was displaced by drought, said:

"We used to depend on farming and livestock keeping. However, the drought affected our livelihoods and forced us to leave our home and move to Baidoa.  

"My two-year-old daughter, Ayan*, became seriously ill. Her illness began with a fever and later developed into diarrhea and sores in her mouth.

“When we first arrived, she was not eating anything. However, after receiving treatment, she began eating well. She even started asking for the food I was eating.”

Mustaf, a doctor at the Save the Children-supported stabilization center in Baidoa, said:

“This year, the number of children we are treating has doubled or even tripled compared with previous years, mainly because of the severe drought. Pastoralists have lost their livestock and farmers have suffered repeated crop failures.

“We depend heavily on humanitarian assistance from organizations such as Save the Children. Should that assistance decrease, we will be unable to continue providing essential services. Medicines and equipment will run short, and many children whose lives could have been saved may not receive the treatment they need.”

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

“Fifteen years ago, the world watched Somalia's children die in a famine that early warnings failed to stop. Today those warnings are flashing again in the same regions, and the children reaching our center in Baidoa are more severely ill than we have seen in years.

“The difference between a warning and a tragedy is whether the response arrives in time. In 2011 it did not. We cannot let Bay region's children pay that price twice.”

“We know how to prevent this. What is missing is not knowledge but funding and speed. If assistance reaches Bay region now, these children will recover and go home. If it comes late, we will be counting a cost we promised in 2011 never to repeat. The world now has to match that urgency.”

Save the Children is calling for an urgent and sustained scale-up of food security, nutrition, health and water and sanitation assistance in Bay region and other hotspots, and for the funding needed to reach children before Burhakaba crosses the line into famine.

Save the Children has worked in Somalia since 1951, delivering health, nutrition, education, child protection and emergency assistance for children and their families.

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NOTES :

[1] Baidoa admissions figures are drawn from Save the Children's own program data, January to June 2026, compared with the same period in 2025.

[2] Cases to the outpatient program: 1167 cases in April, 317 in May and 520 in June, caused by critical delays and stock-outs of ready-to-use therapeutic food and other essential supplies used in treatment.

[3] Save the Children, “When Aid Disappears, Childhood Disappears Too”, 28 April 2026.

[4] IPC Somalia Acute Food Insecurity and Acute Malnutrition Projection Update, April to June 2026, issued 14 May 2026: about half of children under five acutely malnourished; Burhakaba at risk of famine; humanitarian assistance reaching only 12 percent of people in IPC Phase 3 or above.