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Somalia on brink of famine. Can new tools, timely aid avert the worst?

Across the Horn of Africa, a chronic shortfall of rain that is attributed to climate change is affecting 36 million people. In Somalia, according to the United Nations, half the population of 15.7 million people is facing “acute food shortages,” with 1.1 million displaced by both drought and conflict.

Conditions have been described as worse than those seen in 2010-2011, when famine claimed some 260,000 lives in Somalia. But there are key differences today that could limit the toll: Well-honed data collection mechanisms are available to pinpoint needs, and government structures exist to help coordinate priorities.

Why We Wrote This

Somalia’s worst drought in 40 years has sparked warnings from the U.N. of unprecedented catastrophe. This time, though, a functioning government is coordinating among aid agencies. Still needed: generosity.

Still, the U.N. and international aid agencies warn of a burgeoning catastrophe – with 1.5 million children alone at risk of acute malnutrition – unless there is a further infusion of lifesaving aid and compassion.

Officials say the country remains at the tipping point, and that the response in coming weeks will show whether the worst was largely averted.

“We are knocking on the door of famine right now,” says Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the Somali president’s envoy for drought response, in an interview in Mogadishu. “If we don’t get the right, timely response, timely humanitarian assistance, we are facing a catastrophe of famine.”

Standing amid a sprawling camp of makeshift tents, Suado Hassan Abdi, a Somali mother with five young children, can’t even calculate the scale of her family’s losses.

The worst drought to strike Somalia in 40 years – marked by four failed rainy seasons in a row, with a fifth likely to come –  desiccated the crops she had planted with her husband, leaving no food or fodder.

At the door of her tent, Ms. Abdi struggles to take stock, days after arriving in this congested camp on the outskirts of Baidoa, the drought-stricken epicenter of a nation stalked by famine.

Why We Wrote This

Somalia’s worst drought in 40 years has sparked warnings from the U.N. of unprecedented catastrophe. This time, though, a functioning government is coordinating among aid agencies. Still needed: generosity.

Three of her children hover listlessly beside their new abode: mud-smeared layers of tarps pulled across a small frame of tree branches.

How many camels, cows, and goats did they lose?

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