A sporadically favourable rainy season from April to July -- known as the gu -- brought some relief to drought-affected areas of Somalia, mainly in northern regions. But rains were insufficient in parts of the centre and the south.

Despite the rain, FewsNet is still characterising the situation as a food security emergency.

While the number of people requiring urgent humanitarian assistance has decreased from 2.1 million during the first half of 2006, to 1.8 million, Fewsnet says, the geographic area now facing severe food and livelihood insecurity is wider.

This is due to a failure of this year's gu rains in parts of Bakool, Hiran and other central regions. The numbers at risk there now join those whose livelihoods were destroyed by the drought last year in the south.

Some 80 percent of people requiring urgent humanitarian assistance and livelihood support are still in southern Somalia.

Good rains in Puntland and Somaliland in the north have given pastoralists and their livestock the chance to recover well. But conflict and malnutrition continue to pose serious threats further south.

The latest crisis began when the failure of last year's secondary rainy season or Deyr (October to December) resulted in widespread crop failure, considerable livestock deaths, rapidly increasing cereal prices, falling livestock prices and abnormal population movements.

This year's July harvest was the third consecutive below normal harvest in southern Somalia, according to Fewsnet. As a result, cereal prices are expected to remain high.

In humanitarian emergency areas, Oxfam says, the nutritional situation is critical with malnutrition rates exceeding 20 per cent in some areas.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that years of conflict in Somalia, which has been without a central government since 1991, have severely affected the capacity of pastoral populations to recover from this latest drought.

In March, the ICRC increased its estimated expenditure in Somalia for 2006 by 61 percent, stepping up emergency operations to assist more than 1.2 million people. Although it has now wound down the emergency phase of the operation, it stresses that longer-term needs remain acute.

The number of people internally displaced by both drought and conflict in Somalia is now believed by the U.N. to amount to about 380,000.

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Southern Africa hunger

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Key statistics

Population	8.5 million (U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2006)
Number of people facing food and livelihood crisis	1.8 million (Fewsnet)
Number of internally displaced	380,000 (2005, U.N. OCHA)
Life expectancy at birth	46.5 years (UNDP)

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