São Paulo – In a speech delivered on Friday (26th) during the 69th United Nations General Assembly, in New York, Somalia’s president, Hassam Sheik Mohamud, said that the North African country faces an acute humanitarian crisis and that over three million people are in need of some form of assistance. According to the president, the current crisis was driven by insecurity caused by the action of extremist groups and drought.
“It grieves me to report today that the humanitarian situation in Somalia is extremely critical. About 3.2 million Somalis need life-saving or livelihood assistance in Somalia right now. A terrible mix of drought, rising food prices, increasing malnutrition, and insecurity is plunging the humanitarian situation in Somalia into a crisis,” said Mohamud.
The Somali leader has also said that at least one million people are in a food insecurity situation in the Arab country and at least one million people are internally displaced.
In 2011, the country went through its worst drought in six decades, which killed 250,000 people, half of which were children, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In 2012, Mohamud was elected president of Somalia and since then government forces have clashed with members of the extremist militia Al Shabaab. The conflict has uprooted inhabitants of the combat zones.
*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça
