SOMALIA: More than 26,000 people expected to face catastrophic hunger as families reel from extreme weather shocks

MOGADISHU (September 24, 2026) - More than 26,000 people in Somalia are expected to fall into catastrophic levels of food insecurity in the coming months, just one step away from famine, as families already struggling with drought brace for heavy rains and flooding, Save the Children said.

New analysis from global hunger monitor the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warned that thousands of internally displaced children and families in Baidoa, southwest Somalia, are at risk of falling into IPC Phase 5, characterized by starvation and collapse of livelihood, between October and December. Many families spent the past year battling drought and now face the prospect of floods driven by above-average rainfall.

It is the second such warning this year, after the IPC classified the Burhakaba district in the Bay region of southwest Somalia as facing a risk of famine this summer.

Across Somalia, 5.4 million people, or about 28% of the population, are expected to face crisis levels of hunger or worse (IPC Phase 3 and above) through the end of the year. Children are bearing the brunt of the crisis. Nearly 2 million children are expected to suffer acute malnutrition over the next year, and 433,000 are expected to experience severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of malnutrition.

The IPC warns that the hunger crisis is being driven by recurrent climate shocks, including the anticipated impacts of El Niño, alongside conflict, displacement, economic pressures and high food prices.

The latest findings come as climate forecasts indicate a high probability of above-normal rainfall across central and southern Somalia between October and December.^[1] Similar conditions contributed to the devastating floods of 2023, which affected 2.48 million people, displaced more than 1.2 million and killed about 118 people.

The looming floods also risk deepening a hunger crisis in a country still haunted by the famine of 2011, which claimed the lives of an estimated 260,000 people, many of them children. Fifteen years on, Save the Children warned that a dangerous combination of climate shocks, conflict, displacement and funding cuts is once again pushing Somalia toward catastrophe.

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

“The Gu rains gave some families a short reprieve, but these figures show it will not last. Close to 2 million children will need treatment for malnutrition over the next year, and millions of families live along the Jubba and Shabelle rivers, where the Deyr floods are most likely to hit.

“We saw what the 2023 floods did to children here, with families forced from their homes and hundreds of schools and health facilities damaged. This time, the forecasts gave us months of warning. Funding early action now, before the rivers rise, is the most effective way to keep children alive and in treatment.”

Save the Children is calling on donors to urgently fund nutrition, health, water and food assistance in the areas identified as being at greatest risk.

Save the Children has worked in Somalia since 1951, providing health, nutrition, education and child protection services.

Save the Children has launched Nourished Futures, a $300 million global humanitarian nutrition initiative for 2026-2028 that brings together public and private funders to treat and prevent child malnutrition and illness in the toughest humanitarian contexts. Partners joining this initiative are helping reshape the future of humanitarian nutrition, redesigning the way the world treats malnutrition, from a reactive system focused on treating crises to one that prevents them.

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Notes:

[1] According to a report by the Somalia Disaster Management Agency.