The United Nations warned Monday that Somalia was on the brink of famine for the second time in just over a decade, and that time was running out to save lives in the drought-stricken country.

"Famine is at the door and we are receiving a final warning," visiting UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told a press conference in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

"The unprecedented failure of four consecutive rainy seasons, decades of conflict, mass displacement, severe economic issues are pushing many people to... the brink of famine."

Millions of people are at risk of starvation across the Horn of Africa which is in the grip of the worst drought in four decades after four failed rainy seasons wiped out livestock and crops.

There are "concrete indications" that famine will strike Baidoa and Burhakaba in the Bay region of south-central Somalia between October and December, said Griffiths, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"I've been shocked to my core these past few days by the level of pain and suffering we see so many Somalis enduring," he added.

"We are in the last moment of the 11th hour to save lives."

Humanitarian agencies have been ringing alarm bells for months and say the situation across the Horn of Africa -- including Kenya and Ethiopia -- is likely to deteriorate with a likely fifth failed rainy season in the offing.

In Somalia alone, about 7.8 million people or half the population face crisis hunger levels, including about 213,000 in danger of famine, UN agencies say.

Around one million have fled their homes on a desperate quest for food and water.

- 'World must act now' -

Griffiths said the situation was worse than during Somalia's last famine in 2011 when 260,000 people died, more than half of them children under the age of six.

He described scenes of heart-rending suffering during a visit to Baidoa, describing it as the epicentre of the crisis where he saw "children so malnourished they could barely speak" or cry.

Around 1.5 million children across the largely pastoral country were at risk of acute malnutrition by October if nothing changed, he warned.

The conflict-wracked nation is considered one of the most vulnerable to climate change but is particularly ill-equipped to cope with the crisis.

A deadly 15-year insurgency by the radical Islamist Al-Shabaab group against the fragile central government is limiting humanitarian access to many areas.

A long-running political crisis also diverted attention away from the drought, but new President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud used his inauguration speech in June to appeal for international help to stave off disaster.

In recent years, increasingly extreme droughts and floods have added to the devastation caused by a locust invasion and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) last month said the number of people facing hunger across the Horn had increased to 22 million.

"Our worst fears for Somalia are now a reality: Famine is imminent if funds do not arrive immediately," WFP executive director David Beasley said on Twitter Monday.

"The world MUST act now - this is a global call to action."

- 'Sleepwalking' to catastrophe -

A joint report by UN and other humanitarian agencies published Monday said famine conditions in Somalia, facing its fifth straight failed rainy season in the final months of this year, "are likely to last until at least March 2023".

The UN said at the end of August it had received 67 percent of its $1.5 billion aid target for Somalia.

Funds were initially slow in coming, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine among other crises drawing attention from the disaster in the Horn.

The war has also sent global food and fuel prices soaring, making aid delivery more expensive.

In June, British charity Save the Children had issued an alert that the international community was "sleepwalking towards another catastrophic famine" in Somalia.

Last month, OCHA said about 2.3 million children were at risk of "violence, exploitation, abuse, neglect, and death from severe acute malnutrition" across the country.

In 2017, more than six million people in Somalia, more than half of them children, needed aid because of a prolonged drought across East Africa.

But early humanitarian action averted famine that year.

Dying of hunger: What is a famine?
Nairobi (AFP) Sept 5, 2022 - On Monday, the UN's humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned that Somalia was on the brink of famine for the second time in just over a decade.

Here is an exploration of a term that evokes the very worst of human suffering.

- What is a famine? -

"Famine" is a word freighted with dread of hunger and privation, dating back to the dawn of humanity.

More recently, though, it has been codified scientifically to help policymakers and focus humanitarian aid.

Since 2004, global agencies are supposed to only use the term according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) scale.

Famine is the fifth and highest phase of the scale, with the IPC defining it as "an extreme deprivation of food".

"Starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident."

According to the IPC scale, famine exists when at least 20 percent of households in a specific area have extremely limited access to basic food; at least 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and two people out of every 10,000 die each day "due to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease".

- Where have famines occurred? -

Over the last century, famines hit China, the Soviet Union, Iran and Cambodia, often the result of human actions.

Europe suffered several famines in the Middle Ages, but its most recent were during World War I and II, where parts of Germany, Poland and the Netherlands were left starving under military blockades.

In Africa there have been several famines in recent decades, from Biafra in Nigeria in the late 1960s to the 1983-1985 Ethiopian famine, which ushered in a new form of celebrity fundraising and unprecedented media attention on the suffering.

The last time famine was declared was in South Sudan in 2017 in Leer and Mayendit counties, areas that have often been a flashpoint for violence.

In Somalia, famine in 2011 in southcentral areas of the country killed an estimated 260,000 people, half of them children under the age of six.

Griffiths, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said Monday that famine was likely in two areas of south-central Somalia, Baidoa and Burhakaba, between October and December.

- What are the causes? -

Throughout history, famines have generally been caused by human action, usually wars which ravage crops and livestock, ruin trade, displace people and complicate the distribution of aid.

Famine "represents a failure on the part of many parties," said Daniel Maxwell, professor of food security at Tufts University in the United States, told AFP.

"Currently in famine-risk areas (Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Yemen, northeastern Nigeria), violent conflict is the common denominator, but climate factors are playing an increasing role," Maxwell said.

"Even in the context of violent conflict, drought has been a factor in all recent famines in Somalia."

An arid country whose impoverished population depends on livestock and agriculture, Somalia is considered one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change.

In recent years, increasingly extreme droughts and floods have added to devastation caused by a locust invasion and the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as instability fuelled by a jihadist insurgency.

- How does famine kill? -

When lack of food has led to an 18 percent loss of weight, the body starts undergoing physiological disturbances, according to a 1997 study of hunger strikes published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

When people have insufficient food over several weeks, it leads to organ failure and eventually death.

"In most contemporary famines, most people don't literally starve to death," said Maxwell.

"In crowded conditions, killer diseases like cholera or measles are more frequently the actual cause of death, especially of young children. Unfortunately, we have already seen outbreaks of both cholera and measles in Somalia this year."

Lack of food weakens the immune system, making the body more vulnerable to disease, while those displaced by drought often live in makeshift camps, with poor hygiene and limited access to drinking water.

"Between starvation and death, there is nearly always disease," the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Hunger leads to stunted growth and impacts cognitive development, and can lead to poor health throughout a person's life.

Even without reaching famine, parts of Africa go through regular cycles of hunger that have long-term social consequences.

Related Links
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