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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. 

Oxfam together with over 100 NGOs, activists and academics, raises the alarm as remittances to Somalia drop precipitously amid the COVID-19 crisis.

One year after the declaration of famine in Somalia, a quarter of the country’s population are still surviving on humanitarian aid and over a million people could fall back into food crisis in the next two months.

“Oxfam calls for the immediate appointment of a new UN Personal Envoy for Western Sahara to restart the peace process without any further delay. The lack of progress has led to rising frustration within the refugee camps that the Western Sahara crisis is once again being forgotten by the international community, and risks the positive momentum towards a political solution that former Personal Envoy Horst Koehler had begun.”

The world spent yearly an estimated $112 billion on arms imports between 2018-2022, even as 9,000 people die each day from hunger driven primarily by conflict. The top five-arms exporters – the USA, Russia, France, China and Germany - which account for over three-quarters of the global arms trade, together sold an estimated $85 billion worth of arms yearly.  

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. 

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.

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.

Over 170,000 people in the Sahrawi refugee camps are bracing for the Coronavirus as local authorities and organizations remain extremely underprepared for the pandemic due to dwindling funding, Oxfam said today.

Renewed fighting in Western Sahara between the Frente Polisario and Morocco after a 29-year ceasefire, threatens regional stability and renews fears for the security and future of Sahrawi refugees – most of whom have been displaced since 1975.