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STORY GENEVA / SOMALIA FAMINE THREAT
TRT: 03:42
SOURCE: UNTV CH / UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT UNICEF FOOTAGE ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 15 MAY 2026 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / MARCH 2026, SOMALIA / FILE
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior, Palais des Nations, Flag Alley
15 MAY 2026, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, UN Geneva Press room, podium speakers
2. SOUNDBITE (English) George Conway, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, and Deputy Special Representative to the Secretary General, United Nations, Somalia:
“The humanitarian context in Somalia is worsening faster than we originally projected and expected. And right now, around six million people in Somalia - nearly one in three - are facing serious hunger, meaning that they're skipping meals or going days without enough food.”
3. Med shot, journalists, participants
4. SOUNDBITE (English) George Conway, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, and Deputy Special Representative to the Secretary General, United Nations, Somalia:
“Children are paying the highest price. Nearly two million young children are acutely malnourished, meaning they're dangerously undernourished and physically weakened, placing them at high risk of illness or death. Of these, almost half a million are so severely malnourished that they require urgent treatment to survive.”
5. Med shot, journalist
6. SOUNDBITE (English) George Conway, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, and Deputy Special Representative to the Secretary General, United Nations, Somalia:
“We have confirmed a real and credible risk of famine in Barakaba district in South West state of Somalia. Conditions are already severe in the district with high levels of hunger and child malnutrition.”
7. Med shot, laptop showing external speaker
8. SOUNDBITE (English) George Conway, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, and Deputy Special Representative to the Secretary General, United Nations, Somalia:
“Given the drought situation and the drying up of water points, a lot of communities are reliant on water trucking. And the cost of water trucking obviously increases…with the cost of fuel. So, in some locations, we've seen water prices for water trucking triple over the course of the past month.”
9. Wide shot, podium speakers
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Ricardo Pires, Communication Manager and Deputy Spokesperson, UNICEF:
“We depend on air freight. And obviously with the fuel rising - fuel prices rising so significantly - that cost will become very complicated for us to manage looking forward. So, we're really looking at a potential catastrophic scenario here and that's why this warning is so important.”
11. Wide shot, podium speakers, journalists
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Ricardo Pires, Communication Manager and Deputy Spokesperson, UNICEF:
“We are extremely concerned in pockets of the country where, again, the health they require is no longer available or the health systems are strained. And again, our supplies might not be moving fast enough, due to all the disruptions that are happening in the Middle East.”
13. Wide shot, press room, journalists, screens showing remote speaker
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Ricardo Pires, Communication Manager and Deputy Spokesperson, UNICEF:
“We depend a lot, obviously, on ready-to-use therapeutic feeding to treat malnourished children and with this projection that was just mentioned, this is critical, it's a matter of life or death for them. And the cost of air freight has increased significantly since the Middle East crisis to a point that it is of grave concern for us looking at the mid and long term.”
MARCH 2026, DOLLOW HOSPITAL, DOLLOW, SOMALIA
15. Med shot, sick child on bed
16. Med shot, tiny baby on drip
17. Wide shot, mothers and babies on beds
18. Wide shot, mothers and babies on beds
MARCH 2026, LADAN IDP CAMP, SOMALIA
19. Med shot, baby being screened for malnutrition
20. Wide shot, mothers and babies
21. Wide shot, mothers and babies
22. Wide shot, a child rolls a water barrel
23. Wide shot, a child walks towards the camera
24. Wide shot, a child walks across the frame
25. Wide shot, children outside a makeshift shelter
26. Wide shot, women collect water at Ladan IDP camp. Please credit UNICEF.
27. Wide shot, women and children collect water
28. Med shot, infant eating ready-to-use therapeutic food given by mother
29. Wide shot, infant eating ready-to-use therapeutic food given by mother in shelter
30. Med shot, woman carrying water barrel with head strap
31. Wide shot, infant sitting alone in front of a trench
At least six million people in Somalia are going days without enough food, UN aid teams warned today (15 May), highlighting that nearly two million of this number are young children “at high risk of illness or death."
“The humanitarian context in Somalia is worsening faster than we originally projected and expected,” said George Conway, the UN’s top aid official in Somalia, a situation made worse by the unresolved conflict in the Middle East and the ongoing global supply chain crisis that has resulted.
“Children are paying the highest price. Nearly two million young children are acutely malnourished, meaning they're dangerously undernourished and physically weakened, placing them at high risk of illness or death,” Conway stressed.
“Almost half a million are so severely malnourished that they require urgent treatment to survive”, the veteran humanitarian added.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), meanwhile, highlighted numerous places where healthcare to treat disease linked to acute hunger is no longer available or stretched thin by supply chain delays, “due to all the disruptions that are happening in the Middle East”, said spokesperson Ricardo Pires.
Nearly one in three people in Somalia is critically food insecure, according to the latest UN-backed expert assessment from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) platform. It defines famine as a situation in which at least one in five households have an extreme lack of food and face starvation and destitution, resulting in extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death.
Assistance is needed most urgently in South West state, where the UN has confirmed “a real and credible risk of famine in Barakaba district”, Conway continued.
While Somalia’s people have endured drought since 2024, the current Gu rainy season from April to June has brought some relief in localized areas. But there are increasing concerns that not enough rain will fall, heightening the need for humanitarian assistance which is already proving prohibitively expensive.
“Given the drought situation and the drying up of water points, a lot of communities are reliant on water trucking,” Conway said. “And the cost of water trucking obviously increases with the crisis with the cost of fuel. So, in some locations, we've seen water prices for water trucking triple over the course of the past month.”
Ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) is the go-to treatment for children suffering from severe hunger, but its continued supply is also in question, the longer the Middle East crisis continues to impact fuel prices and particularly air freight.
“We have a factory in Nairobi that produces a lot of the RUTF that we provide for Africa and other countries, but Somalia is a specific case whereby moving these supplies by road is not as feasible,” UNICEF’s Pires explained.
He said, “We depend on air freight and obviously with the fuel rising, the fuel prices rising so significantly, that cost will become very complicated for us to manage looking forward” and added that this is “a matter of life or death for them.”
