UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged the international community to take action to avert famine in Somalia where a biting drought has left three million people going hungry.
Somalia is facing its third famine in the 25 years that it has been embroiled in civil war and anarchy. A 2011 famine left 260,000 people dead in the Horn of Africa nation.
“There is a chance to avoid the worst… but we need massive support from the international community to avoid a repetition of the tragic events of 2011,” said Guterres.
“It justifies a massive response,” he added.
After a stop in Mogadishu, Guterres visited a camp of displaced people in the central city of Baidoa which has been hard-hit by the drought.
“The major factor for coming here was the drought. There is a lack of water, a lack of food. Our livestock has died,” said mother-of-six Mainouna who arrived in the camp last month.
She only brought three of her children, the youngest of which is one year old, and left the others with her family in the southern region of Middle Juba.
Guterres said the world had a “moral obligation” to help people like Mainouna.
Guterres earlier met with President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a popular leader whose recent election has sparked hope among Somalis of a more stable future for a country notorious for being the world’s foremost failed state.
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