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Somalia’s financial lifeline remains under threat as banks in US, UK, Australia, and elsewhere have broken ties with the money transfer operators that make remittances possible, NGOs warn.

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.

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.  

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.

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. 

The international community is proving utterly inadequate in helping Syrians both inside and outside their country. Oxfam’s damning verdict is in a new report today Solidarity with Syrians that analyses the “fair shares” of rich and powerful countries to provide money, resettlement places for refugees and leadership to end the bloodshed.  

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 and other agencies say that the international community must agree a bold new deal for Syria’s refugees if it is serious about tackling the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. The new deal must provide more investment in Syria’s neighbours, which host more than 4 million refugees, and an end to restrictions that prevent refugees from working and in some cases living legally in these countries. 

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

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.