Super El Niño May Push 26,000 Somalians Into Hunger
By Save the Children
September 24, 2026
More than 26,000 people in Somalia are expected to fall into catastrophic levels of food insecurity in coming months, just one step away from famine, as families already struggling with drought brace for heavy rains and flooding.
MOGADISHU, 24 September 2026 – More than 26,000 people in Somalia are expected to fall into catastrophic levels of food insecurity in coming months, just one step away from famine, as families already struggling with drought brace for heavy rains and flooding, Save the Children said.
New analysis from global hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warned that thousands of internally displaced children and families in Baidoa in southwest Somalia are at risk of falling into IPC Phase 5 Catastrophe between October and December. Many of these families spent the past year battling drought and are now facing the prospect of floods driven by forecast above-average rainfall.
It’s the second such warning this year after the IPC classified the Burhakaba district in the Bay region of southwest Somalia to be facing the risk of famine through June 2026. This was the first such alert in Somalia since the devastating drought of 2022.
Across Somalia, 5.4 million people, or about 28% of the population, are expected to face crisis levels of hunger or worse (IPC Phase 3 and above) between October and December. While this represents a slight improvement compared with projections released in May following seasonal harvests, it is nearly 60% higher than the 3.4 million people facing the same levels of hunger at this time last year, highlighting a worsening long-term trend.
The IPC warns that the hunger crisis is being driven by a combination of recurrent climate shocks, such as the anticipated impacts of El Niño alongside conflict, displacement, economic pressures and high food prices.
Children are bearing the brunt of the crisis. Nearly two million children are expected to suffer acute malnutrition over the next year, a 3% increase from a year ago, including 433,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM), the deadliest form of malnutrition.
The latest findings come as climate forecasts indicate a high probability of above-normal rainfall across central and southern Somalia between October and December [1]. Similar conditions contributed to the devastating floods of 2023, which affected 2.48 million people, displaced between about 2 million and killed 188 people.
The looming floods also risk deepening a hunger crisis in a country still haunted by the famine of 2011, which claimed the lives of an estimated 250,000 people, many of them children. Fifteen years on, Save the Children warned that a dangerous combination of climate shocks, conflict, displacement and funding cuts is once again pushing Somalia towards catastrophe.
Mohamed Mohamud Hassan, Save the Children’s Country Director for Somalia, said:
“The Gu rains gave some families a short reprieve, but these figures show it will not last. Close to two million children will need treatment for malnutrition over the next year, and millions of families live along the Jubba and Shabelle, where the Deyr floods are most likely to hit.
“We saw what the 2023 floods did to children here, with families forced from their homes and hundreds of schools and health facilities damaged. This time the forecasts gave us months of warning. Funding early action now, before the rivers rise, is the most effective way to keep children alive and in treatment.”
Save the Children is calling on donors to urgently fund nutrition, health, water and food assistance in the 26 hotspot areas identified to be at greatest risk and to finance anticipatory action under the national flood framework before the Deyr rains peak. Save the Children has worked in Somalia since 1951, providing health, nutrition, education and child protection services.
Save the Children has launched Nourished Futures, a $300 million global humanitarian nutrition initiative for 2026–2028 bringing together public and private funders to treat and prevent child malnutrition and illness in the toughest humanitarian contexts. Partners joining this initiative are helping reshape the future of humanitarian nutrition, redesigning together the way the world treats malnutrition – from a reactive system focused on treating crisis to one that prevents it.
Ends.
Notes to editors
[1] According to a report by Somalia Disaster Management Agency.
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