The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that aid shortages are taking a growing toll on Somalia's most vulnerable people, leaving them without access to vital healthcare, nutritional support, and safe water. The brutal funding cuts are devastating for severely malnourished children, who have already lost or will soon lose access to life-saving treatment.
Reduced donor funding has forced humanitarian agencies in Somalia to scale back or close critical programs, drastically reducing life-saving operations and putting millions of lives at risk. Food assistance has been slashed, health facilities are closing, and water and sanitation services are dwindling.
Somalia already faces a severe food security situation, with 4.6 million people experiencing high acute food insecurity and 1.8 million children under five expected to be acutely malnourished this year. Of those children, 479,000 are likely to be severely malnourished.
Despite Somalia being among the world’s most critical hunger hotspots in the coming months, aid agencies working in Somalia report that food assistance has dropped more than 50 percent compared to the same period last year.
In an update on Tuesday, OCHA reported that more than 150 clinics across Somalia have been affected in the first half of this year, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without access to healthcare. Funding for water and sanitation programs stands at just 6.5 percent of the required amount.
According to the UN humanitarian office, more than 28 nutrition sites in the Middle Shabelle region could close by the end of this month. OCHA warns that these closures will significantly impact nutrition services for vulnerable children and pregnant and lactating women in one of the regions with the highest malnutrition rates in Somalia.
“In Banadir region, more than 12,700 malnourished children, including more than 1,100 suffering from severe acute malnutrition and at risk of death, will soon lose life-saving treatment, as 20 supplementary feeding sites face imminent closure,” UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists on Tuesday.
“Similarly, in South West state, mobile outreach health teams have dropped from 74 in 2024 to just 25 currently. In Puntland state, 79 health facilities, including all 29 public health units, have ceased functioning since the start of the year.”
About one-third of Somalia's population — nearly 6 million people — needs humanitarian assistance in 2025. Due to severe funding cuts, two million Somalis are expected to face increased vulnerability in the coming months.
Humanitarian agencies in Somalia have reprioritized their response efforts to align their activities with the new funding constraints. The revised response targets 1.3 million people, which is a 72 percent reduction from the initial target of 4.6 million for 2025.
To date, the $1.4 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) for Somalia has received just over US$222 million, or 15.6 percent of the total funding required. The nutrition and food security sectors have received only 3 and 5 percent of the funding they need, respectively.
“We are concerned that without urgent and sustained funding, the humanitarian crisis in Somalia will only deepen, leading to preventable suffering and loss of life,” Dujarric said.
The aid shortfalls are a direct consequence of the United States and other donor governments withdrawing essential humanitarian aid. Last year, the US government contributed more than half ($475.7 million) of the funding received by the 2024 Somalia HNRP. To date, however, the US has provided merely $25 million for the 2025 HNRP.
In response, humanitarian organizations, including UN agencies and non-governmental aid organizations, have implemented severe cutbacks, including suspending programs essential to saving lives and alleviating human suffering for those in greatest need.
Meanwhile, Somalia is grappling with a severe and protracted humanitarian crisis fueled by conflict, poverty, widespread displacement, climate shocks, disease outbreaks, and a lack of access to basic services. At least 9.1 million Somalis, out of a population of 19.3 million, are affected by the ongoing crisis.
Protracted conflict, escalating clan violence, and recurrent climatic shocks have led to widespread displacement. An estimated 4.7 million Somalis remain displaced. Some 3.8 million are displaced within Somalia, while more than 900,000 have sought refuge in neighboring countries due to climate shocks and armed conflict.
In a related development, on Tuesday the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that ongoing and intensifying conflict in the Hiraan region of central Somalia between the Somali National Army (SNA), supported by local militias, and the non-state armed group al-Shabab has resulted in a deterioration of the humanitarian situation.