The World Food Program (WFP) warned on Thursday that drought, conflict and severe funding shortfalls are pushing millions of people into food insecurity across the country.
Around 6.5 million people are now suffering from crisis hunger or worse, almost double the number recorded a year ago.
Of these, two million face emergency levels of food insecurity, while more than 1.8 million children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition this year.
Lack of financing
Although Somalia is better positioned to respond than during the devastating drought crisis that hit the country in 2022, humanitarian agencies say funding shortages are forcing major cuts.
The agency, which delivers nearly 90 percent of food assistance in Somalia, said it had provided emergency cash transfers to 380,000 drought-affected people through government-supported schemes aimed at strengthening national social protection efforts.
However, the WFP says it can now only reach one in ten people who urgently need it. Emergency food assistance has already been suspended in several districts, while nutritional support to pregnant and lactating women has been reduced.
In Gaza, ‘rats bite children at night in their tents while they sleep’
To Gaza, where aid teams say rats are biting children in their sleep, as conditions continue to deteriorate amid continued airstrikes, shelling and shooting.
The alert from UNRWA, the UN agency for the Palestinians, also highlights how the already vulnerable population of the devastated enclave faces a “much greater risk of disease” due to repeated displacement, overcrowded tents, lack of clean water and faulty sanitation systems.
UNRWA is working closely with the United Nations World Health Organization and local partners to track the increase in skin infections and rodent infestations in tents.
The agency and its partners are expanding the distribution of hygiene kits, but many more tents, insecticides and medicines are urgently needed, amid continuing delays in deliveries of the most basic aid.
Stick to priorities
To mitigate fire risks, health workers should be allowed to remove waste from displacement sites and residential areas and transport it to designated landfills in Gaza, according to the UN aid coordination office (OCHA).
Since designated landfills became inaccessible during hostilities, the market has been used as a major solid waste dump, and the garbage now covers an entire city block and exceeds four spans in height.
Gaza’s two landfills are close to the perimeter fence surrounding the Strip, where Israeli authorities must allow access.
OCHA warns that the restoration of local services is hampered by restrictions on the entry of critical items into Gaza and by movement restrictions affecting key humanitarian partners.
Ukraine: Aid convoys deliver vital aid near front lines
In Ukraine, the UN and its partners continue to provide vital aid in support of residents living near the front lines and still enduring attacks from Russia, as part of its ongoing large-scale invasion.
The U.N. aid coordination office, OCHA, said in an update that major urban centers in eastern Ukraine have come under heavy shelling, harming civilians and first responders.
This week, humanitarian convoys reached residents of the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.
Matthias Schmale is the top UN aid official in Ukraine. He speaks now from Sviatohirsk, a former tourist destination, where a humanitarian convoy arrived on Tuesday.
“Before the full-scale invasion in 2022, I understand that there were thousands of people living in this community. Now there are about 300 left, so you can also measure in those terms the impact of this war on the population of a place that, as I understand it, was once in the center of a tourist area… All of that no longer exists.”
UN complies
With the help of the UN and NGOs, aid convoys have delivered solar lamps, medicines, construction materials and hygiene kits for the elderly.
So far this year, 20 humanitarian convoys have been sent to frontline communities, providing critical support to nearly 22,000 residents.
Across the country, approximately 30 civilians were killed and 170 wounded on Tuesday and early Wednesday, according to authorities.
The attacks occurred with gliding bombs and missiles in the cities of Zaporizhzhia, Kramatorsk and Dnipro. Several residential buildings, a dormitory, an educational center and other civil infrastructure were also damaged, OCHA said.
UN human rights chief Türk warns Tunisia to end repression against journalists and civil society
UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday urged Tunisia to stop what he described as a growing crackdown on civil society groups, journalists, activists and opposition figures.
The senior UN official’s intervention followed court-ordered suspensions against Avocats Sans Frontières (Lawyers Without Borders) and the Tunisian League for Human Rights.
Türk also criticized the increasing restrictions on the media.
wrongful arrest
It cited journalist Zied El Heni, who was arrested last month under a law that criminalizes online communications deemed “harmful to others,” while dozens of other journalists have faced prosecution and prison sentences.
“Tunisia’s democratic and human rights achievements after 2011 must be maintained, not progressively dismantled,” the UN human rights chief insisted.
He called for the immediate release of people detained for expressing protected opinions and warned that limits on freedoms must remain legal, necessary and proportionate.