United Nations Declared a Famine in Two Regions of Southern Somalia

On 20 July 2011 the United Nations declared a famine, occurring in the Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions of southern Somalia. The UN formally declared a famine in five districts in Southern Somalia. It also appealed for 300 million US dollars by August and September 2011, to bolster its response in the affected areas of Somalia.

Parts of southern Somalia suffered from the worst famine in a generation, affecting over 3.7 million people. More than 166,000 desperate Somalis are estimated to have fled their country to neighbouring Kenya or Ethiopia.

The UN estimated that humanitarian agencies needed 1.6 billion US dollars for Somalia alone. Tens of thousands of people died across the region, most of them were children.The last time similar conditions took place in Somalia in 1992, when hundreds of thousands of Somalis starved to death.

Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controlled large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009. However, later it had allowed limited access. An estimated 10 million people are affected in East Africa by the worst drought in more than half a century.