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Almost half of the population of Timor-Leste’s capital has been impacted by severe flooding, according to government figures, after heavy rains fell on Dili and nearby provinces last week. Cyclone Seroja took the people of Timor-Leste by surprise, with the small nation previously not within the range of such extreme weather events. Oxfam in Timor-Leste’s Associate Country Director, Annie Sloman, said the impact of climate change was undeniable.

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.

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.

Days of heavy monsoon rain in south-eastern Bangladesh have caused severe flooding in and around the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps, leaving thousands in urgent need of food, water and sanitation, Oxfam warned today. 

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. 

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.

Rohingya refugees interviewed by Oxfam in Bangladesh say they will not go back to Myanmar until their safety can be guaranteed and they have equal rights, including being able to work and travel freely.

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.  

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