Somalia

Two months after the start of the Deyr season, rainfall has been cleary below average all over southern Somalia, with nearly no rainfall in November, confirming the initial concerns about another failed rainy season (the fifth in a row). At this stage of the season even late rainfall would be unlikely to allow for a substantial recovery and the seasonal outlook and crop failure becomes more likely. According to FSNAU assessments, the food security situation is dire among agropastoral households with famine thresholds being attained in some areas. Recent analysis of IPC estimates that 6.7 million people are in Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or higher) outcomes, comprising 4.2 million in crisis (IPC Phase 3) 2.2 million in emergency (IPC Phase 4), and 300,560 people in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5). A further 3.1 million people are stressed and in need of continuous aid to evade them sliding into worse off phases. The ongoing delivery of humanitarian food assistance is currently mitigating the size of the acutely food insecure population and has likely prevented the worsening of food security and nutrition outcomes in many areas, but levels of acute food insecurity across Somalia remain high and will further deteriorate if food assistance is not scaled up and sustained.