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The escalation in civil insecurity in Somalia has severely hindered response activities at a time of sharply increasing needs. About 3.25 million people, mostly in southern and central Somalia, are in need of urgent assistance. The violence has also disrupted commercial activities and contributed to an escalation in food prices.
In southern and central Somalia, households have already exhausted most coping mechanisms to respond to the current crisis, the result of below-normal April-June rains, crop failure, high food and fuel prices, and continued violence and unrest.
As a result, the country is facing an extreme humanitarian crisis, and indications are that the situation will continue to deteriorate with increasing rapidity through the end of 2008, and into 2009. Child malnutrition rates are already extreme; 180,000 children in southern and central Somalia are acutely or severely malnourished. Urgent food and non-food assistance is needed to respond to the crisis.
Medical staff assist a wounded civilian at Madina hospital in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, October 7, 2008. 50 aid agencies appealed against "horrendous" violence as Islamist insurgents battle the government and its ...
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