About 4 mln Somalis facing food crisis amid anticipated El Nino: UN

MOGADISHU, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- About 4 million Somalis are living at different levels of food security crisis, a United Nations relief official has said.

George Conway, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said the situation is projected to deteriorate further until December.

About 3.8 million Somalis are internally displaced across the country, and the number has increased by 1 million people over the course of the protracted drought, Conway said in a statement released in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, Wednesday evening. According to him, Somalia has been experiencing a long and severe drought -- its worst in 40 years -- which has also involved significant risks of famine.

At the height of the humanitarian response over the past two years, he said, more than 6.3 million Somalis were receiving some form of UN assistance which included support with food, hygiene, water, sanitation and more.

He, however, said that while recent rains have ameliorated the situation and food insecurity across the country has improved, challenges remain.

"So right now, today in addition to the baseline of humanitarian need in the country, we are very concerned about the impact of El Nino on the Deyr rainy season. We have already in the past two weeks seen flash flooding happening in a number of cities throughout the country. We have seen river levels rising," the UN official said.

According to estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization, around 1.2 million Somalis could be impacted by flooding over the course of the next three months, with 1.6 million hectares of land also inundated as a result.

Somalis in camps for internally displaced people, and the host communities for those camps, are expected to be disproportionately affected, the UN official said. "The estimates that we have right now are that the rains are likely to be the worst that we've seen in at least 20 years, with the most recent worst rains in 1997," he said.

Conway noted that UN humanitarian agencies have been working with the Somali government on preparedness measures to try to reduce the impact on Somalis.