UN: Millions of Somalis at Risk of Famine

Six million Somalis are facing extreme levels of food insecurity YASUYOSHI CHIBA AFP/File
Six million Somalis are facing extreme levels of food insecurity YASUYOSHI CHIBA AFP/File
TT
20

UN: Millions of Somalis at Risk of Famine

Six million Somalis are facing extreme levels of food insecurity YASUYOSHI CHIBA AFP/File
Six million Somalis are facing extreme levels of food insecurity YASUYOSHI CHIBA AFP/File

Millions of people in Somalia are at risk of famine, with young children the most vulnerable to the worsening drought in the troubled Horn of Africa nation, UN agencies warned on Tuesday.

"Somalia is facing famine conditions as a perfect storm of poor rain, skyrocketing food prices and huge funding shortfalls leaves almost 40 percent of Somalis on the brink," the agencies said in a statement.

Many parts of Somalia are being ravaged by drought that has also taken hold in other countries in the region including Ethiopia and Kenya, but the UN agencies warned of a major funding shortfall to address the crisis and avoid a repeat of the 2011 famine, AFP reported.

"We are literally about to start taking food from the hungry to feed the starving," the UN World Food Program's Somalia representative El-Khidir Daloum said in a statement, describing the country as "on the cusp of a humanitarian catastrophe".

Six million Somalis or 40 percent of the population are now facing extreme levels of food insecurity, according to a new report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, almost a two-fold increase since the beginning of the year, the agencies said.

The joint statement by the WFP, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the humanitarian agency OCHA and the United Nations Children's Fund said "pockets of famine conditions" were likely in six areas of Somalia.

They said children under the age of five were the most vulnerable, with access to food and milk scarce because of rising commodity prices and livestock issues.

About 1.4 million children face acute malnutrition through the end of the year, with around one quarter facing severe acute malnutriton, the statement said.

Together, humanitarian agencies had been able to supply aid to almost two million people but the UN warned of a "critical gap" in donor funding, with a 2022 plan seeking $1.5 billion reaching only 4.4 percent of the target.

In the 2011 famine, 260,000 people -- half of them children under the age of six -- died of hunger or hunger-related disorders.

Natural disasters -- not conflict -- have in recent years been the main drivers of displacement in Somalia, a war-torn nation that ranks among the world's most vulnerable to climate change.



Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
TT
20

Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)

President Emmanuel Macron said France would order additional Rafale warplanes in the coming years and invest nearly 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) into one of its air bases to equip its squadrons with the latest nuclear missile technology.

Jolted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and US President Donald Trump's more confrontational stance towards traditional Western allies, European countries are hiking defense spending and seeking to reduce dependence on the United States.

Macron, who has initiated a doubling of the French defense budget over the course of his two mandates, has recently set an even higher target, saying the country should increase defense spending to 3-3.5% of economic output from the current 2%.

He has also offered to extend the protection of France's nuclear weapons, the so-called nuclear umbrella, to other European countries.

"We haven't waited for 2022 or the turning point we're seeing right now to discover that the world we live in is ever more dangerous, ever more uncertain, and that it implies to innovate, to bulk up and to become more autonomous," he said.

"I will announce in the coming weeks new investments to go further than what was done over the past seven years," he told soldiers at one of the country's historical air bases in Luxeuil, eastern France.

Macron said he had decided to turn the base, famed in military circles as the home of American volunteer pilots during World War One, into one of its most advanced bases in its nuclear deterrence program.

The base will host the latest Rafale S5 fighter jets, which will carry France's next-generation ASN4G hypersonic nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are intended to be operational from 2035 onwards, French officials said.

The French air force will also receive additional Dassault-made Rafale warplanes, in part to replace the Mirage jets France has transferred to Ukraine, Macron said.

"We are going to increase and accelerate our orders for Rafales," he said.

French officials said the 1.5 billion euros were part of the already approved multi-year military spending plan. It remained unclear how France would finance a massive hike in military spending at a time it is trying to reduce its budget deficit.

Macron's speech comes on the day the German parliament approved a massive increase in military spending.