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Nearly 90% of Somalia is now in a severe drought, following three consecutive failed rain seasons. Some areas facing their driest season in 40 years. Nearly 3.5 million people are already acutely food insecure and millions more are now at risk of going hungry by the beginning of next year.

Cyclone Yasa landfall in Fiji yesterday, carrying destructive winds of up to 345km/h, heavy rain and storm swells, has flattened homes and left major devastation to roads, and vegetation. More than 600,000 people in the South Pacific island nation are now affected, thousands of which are already in evacuation centers as the tropical storm disrupted access to essential utilities including water supply and sanitation facilities, as well as food.

Stories of complete devastation are beginning to come out of Vanuatu in the aftermath of the severe tropical cyclone Pam.Oxfam staff on the ground in Port Vila have reported complete destruction of homes, three story high trees completely uprooted and small communities with barely any houses left standing. Oxfam's Vanuatu Country Director Colin Collett van Rooyen said people in Vanuatu had told him they had never seen a…

As many as 28 million people across East Africa face severe hunger if the March rains fail. With the unfolding crisis in Ukraine taking their attention, there is a real danger that the international community will not respond adequately to the escalating hunger crisis in East Africa until it is too late, Oxfam warned today. 

Oxfam together with nearly 50 NGOs from the Somalia NGO Consortium, warns of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Somalia and calls upon donors to urgently fund Somalia's drought crisis response.

Two rapid assessment teams have arrived in the two small southern Vanuatu islands hit hardest by Cyclone Pam to rapidly assess exactly what survivors of the disaster need.

One month after Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu, water remains a high priority, with small islands dependent on rainwater most in need, Oxfam said today.

Aid should today begin to reach the hard hit southern Vanuatu islands of Tanna and Erromango, which both took the full force of the 250kmh Cyclone Pam, after rapid assessments of the islands showed absolute devastation with entire villages destroyed.

Up to 90 per cent of housing in Vanuatu's capital reported to have been seriously damaged by Cyclone Pam, with still no information from the extremely vulnerable outer islands which are home to 33,000 people. 

In reaction to the 2023 Somalia Humanitarian Response Plan published today, Oxfam Country Director in Somalia, Adil AlMahi, said: “With five failed rain seasons, Somalia is quickly moving towards what may be one of its worst humanitarian crises in recent history. People’s ability to cope has been stretched to a breaking point. They have nothing left to fall back on.