What would have been 30-year-old Hawa’s family harvest has been lost to last season’s drought. With no means to survive and provide her children with food, she had to leave home in search of more prosperous opportunities. Hawa, her husband, and her children (pictured above) now reside in an internally displaced persons (IDP) settlement in the Baidoa district of southern Somalia.

“It’s been difficult living here with no work,” Hawa says. “Just look around.” The land surrounding the camp is barren and dry. “We don’t have food, that’s why I am feeding my children wild fruits,” she elaborates, with distress in her eyes.

“When the children are hungry, they will start crying, asking for food, and will not stop,” Hawa says. “When I have water, I give [it to] them to stop them crying, but it will be for a moment before they start again, demanding for food.”
When food options are exhausted, Hawa is forced to feed her children boiled wild fruits that have no nutritious value. Degraded nutritional intake has impacted her children’s health: Her 3-year-old son’s growth has been stunted, and he consistently complains of hunger.

A May 2022 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification shows that the Baidoa district is experiencing emergency levels of hunger, with 30% or more of children malnourished. Within Baidoa’s IDP settlements, most people have arrived due to drought in their region that has narrowed access to food and water. Across Somalia, more than 380,000 children are in acute need of life-saving aid. With over 90% of Somalia’s wheat imports coming from Ukraine and Russia, the combination of limited access to food and water and soaring prices from a disrupted import chain will only push the Somali population further toward hunger.