Report: 43,000 Estimated Dead in Somalia Drought Last Year

People arrive at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022 amid a drought. (AP)
People arrive at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022 amid a drought. (AP)
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Report: 43,000 Estimated Dead in Somalia Drought Last Year

People arrive at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022 amid a drought. (AP)
People arrive at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022 amid a drought. (AP)

A new report says an estimated 43,000 people died amid the longest drought on record in Somalia last year and half of them likely were children.

It is the first official death toll announced in the drought withering large parts of the Horn of Africa.

At least 18,000 people are forecast to die in the first six months of this year.

“The current crisis is far from over,” says the report released Monday by the World Health Organization and the United Nations children’s agency and carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Somalia and neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya are facing a sixth consecutive failed rainy season while rising global food prices complicate the hunger crisis.

The UN and partners earlier this year said they were no longer forecasting a formal famine declaration for Somalia for now but called the situation “extremely critical” with more than 6 million people hungry in that country alone.

Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from outright starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases like cholera. A formal famine declaration means data shows more than a fifth of households have extreme food gaps, more than 30% of children are acutely malnourished and over two people out of 10,000 are dying every day.

Some humanitarian and climate officials this year have warned that trends are worse than in the 2011 famine in Somalia in which a quarter-million people died.

Millions of livestock have died in the current crisis compounded by climate change and insecurity as Somalia battles thousands of fighters with al-Qaida’s East Africa affiliate, al-Shabab. The UN migration agency says 3.8 million people are displaced, a record high.

A food security assessment released last month said nearly a half-million children in Somalia are likely to be severely malnourished this year.

This time, the world is looking elsewhere, many humanitarian officials say.

“Many of the traditional donors have washed their hands and focused on Ukraine,” the UN resident coordinator in Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, told the visiting US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during a briefing in Mogadishu in January.



Building in Beirut Southern Suburbs Struck After Israeli Warning

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
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Building in Beirut Southern Suburbs Struck After Israeli Warning

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

A building in Beirut’s southern suburbs known as Dahieh was struck on Sunday almost an hour after the Israeli army issued an evacuation order to residents of the area.

The Israeli army's spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, earlier said on X that residents should evacuate several buildings in the Hadath neighborhood and move "at least 300 meters away.”

Residents reported hearing gunfire across the area, which they said they believed was intended to warn people to leave, as well as seeing a massive traffic jam on roads leading from the area.

"To everyone located in the building marked in red on the attached map, and the surrounding buildings: you are near facilities belonging to Hezbollah," Adraee wrote in a post that included a map of the potential targets.

The Israeli army said the building was being used to store precision missiles belonging to Hezbollah.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Hezbollah's precision missiles "posed a significant threat to the State of Israel."

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called on the United States and France, as guarantors of the ceasefire agreement struck in November, to compel Israel to stop its attacks.
"Israel's continued actions in undermining stability will exacerbate tensions and place the region at real risk, threatening its security and stability," he said in a statement.

Earlier this month an Israeli airstrike killed four people, including a Hezbollah official, in Beirut's southern suburbs -the second Israeli strike on a Hezbollah-controlled area of the Lebanese capital in five days.