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Somalia: Drought Response - Situation Report No. 4 (as of 16 April 2017)

Countries
Somalia
+ 1 more
Sources
OCHA
Publication date

Highlights

• The humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate and the possibility of famine in 2017 persists. While the Gu rains have started in parts of Somalia, much of the damage to crops and livestock has already been done and the humanitarian situation is expected to continue to deteriorate through June.

• Somali and international NGOs and UN agencies continue to scale up assistance throughout the country in coordination with authorities. In the month of March, 1.7 million people have, for example, been assisted with improved access to food, an increase of 62% compared to 1.1 million reach in February. There is also a significant scale-up of nutrition services underway, with 332,000 children and women treated in March alone, hereof 69,000 children under five who were severely malnourished. Further scale-up is ongoing across all clusters. Priorities include treatment and prevention of AWD/cholera and prevention of measles, improved access to food and safe water, nutritional treatment for malnourished children, protection of children and women, shelter and non-food support to newly displaced.

• The spread of measles continues to be of serious concern, with 4,499 suspected cases reported since the beginning of the year. More than half of these suspected cases (52 per cent) were among children under 5.

• The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Emergency Directors visited Somalia on 9-10 April to assess impact of drought on populations and support efforts to scale-up assistance to prevent famine.

• On the occasion of the visit of the Assistant Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
Hesham Youssef, authorities and humanitarian partners came together in Mogadishu on 11 April for a humanitarian roundtable to strengthen partnerships among key stakeholders for enhanced coordination.

• Donors have moved quickly to generously support scale-up of response and over US$573 million has been made available or pledged for humanitarian assistance since January

6.2m People in need. 2.9m in IPC Phase 3 and 4

571,000 Internally displaced due to drought since November 2016 as of 7 April

62% More people reached with food assistance in past month

4,499 Suspected Measles cases in 2017 as of 26 March

25,424 AWD/cholera cases reported in 2017 as of 9 April

$573m Total humanitarian funding in 2017

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit https://www.unocha.org/.