The Somalia famine of 2010 to 2012: what happened and how many died

In short

Between October 2010 and April 2012, severe food insecurity and famine killed an estimated 258,000 people in southern and central Somalia, above the deaths that would normally have happened. About 133,000 of them were children under five. The range of the estimate is 244,000 to 273,000 (Checchi and Robinson, Mortality among populations of southern and central Somalia, FAO/FSNAU and FEWS NET, 2 May 2013, pp. 8–10).

The UN declared famine on 20 July 2011, in southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle. It was the first famine declared in Somalia since 1991–92 (UN News, 20 July 2011). The famine was declared over on 3 February 2012 (FAO, 3 February 2012). The wider story of Somali droughts is on rain, drought and floods in Somalia.

How it started

• Rain and harvests. A long drought gave southern Somalia its poorest harvests since the 1992–93 famine. Food prices rose and aid fell at the same time (Checchi and Robinson 2013, p. 5).
• Aid withdrawn. On 5 January 2010 the World Food Programme said it was suspending its work in parts of southern Somalia because of threats to staff and "unacceptable demands" by armed groups (PBS NewsHour, 5 January 2010).
• Access. The study records "the progressive withdrawal of humanitarian agencies from most of southern Somalia" and a halt in funding to those regions by some donors through 2010 and early 2011 (Checchi and Robinson 2013, p. 18).
• Warnings. FSNAU and FEWS NET issued repeated warnings from rainfall, market and nutrition data. By July 2011 all of southern Somalia was in IPC phase 4 or 5, which had never happened since the IPC was adopted in Somalia in 2006 (Checchi and Robinson 2013, pp. 18–19).

The famine declarations

On 20 July 2011 the UN said acute malnutrition among children in the two first regions was above 30%. Deaths among children under five passed six per 10,000 a day in some areas. About 3.7 million Somalis were in crisis, 2.8 million of them in the south (UN News, 20 July 2011). In September FSNAU said 750,000 people faced death in the next four months without more help (FSNAU, 5 September 2011).

Aid and armed control

Much of the famine area was held by al-Shabaab. The BBC reported that the group "denied there was a famine and banned several Western aid agencies" from its territory (BBC News, 2 May 2013).

• 28 November 2011. Al-Shabaab banned 16 aid groups, among them UNHCR, WHO, UNICEF and the Norwegian and Danish Refugee Councils. Armed men entered their offices in towns such as Baidoa and Beledweyne (Al Jazeera, 28 November 2011).
• January 2012. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) suspended food aid to 1.1 million people in southern and central Somalia, citing obstruction by local armed groups (Al Jazeera, 30 January 2012).
• 30 January 2012. Al-Shabaab banned the ICRC from areas it held. It said the ICRC had handed out outdated food (Al Jazeera, 30 January 2012).

The 2013 study says "there is consensus that the humanitarian response to the famine was mostly late and insufficient". It names limited access and "operating restrictions imposed on several relief agencies" as a major constraint (Checchi and Robinson 2013, p. 5). Measles, cholera and other epidemics spread in nearly all affected regions (p. 5).

The dead, region by region

The table gives excess deaths from October 2010 to April 2012, with the share of each region's people who died (Checchi and Robinson 2013, Table 1, p. 8).

• In Lower Shabelle, 17.6% of children under five died in excess of normal (p. 8).
• By way of life, displaced people lost the largest share: 6.5%, or 68,700 people (p. 8).
• More than 20,000 excess deaths a month happened from May to October 2011 (p. 9).
• Deaths began to rise in October 2010, "well before humanitarian relief began to be mobilised" (p. 9).

A FAO official told the BBC that "about half of the casualties were there before the famine was already declared" (BBC News, 2 May 2013).

Flight to the camps

Large numbers of people moved inside Somalia, to the Afgooye corridor and Mogadishu, or crossed into the camps at Dadaab in Kenya and Dollo Ado in Ethiopia (Checchi and Robinson 2013, pp. 5, 19). The study could not give one figure for the camps. Its range for excess deaths was −1,000 to 5,700 in Dollo Ado and −1,300 to 8,800 in Dadaab, "probably in the thousands" (p. 9). More on displacement is on how many Somalis are displaced inside Somalia.

How it ended

The October to December 2011 Deyr rains helped farmers grow and buy more food. Farmers in Bay and Shabelle doubled their maize and sorghum crops, their "highest harvest in years", FAO said. On 3 February 2012 FSNAU and FEWS NET said the famine was over. People in need of emergency aid fell from 4 million to 2.34 million, or 31% of the population (FAO, 3 February 2012).

Compared with 1992

The 2013 study found the death toll similar to that of the 1992–93 famine. The share of people who died was about half, because more people were affected in 2011 (Checchi and Robinson 2013, p. 9). The BBC compared the 258,000 with an estimated 220,000 deaths in 1992 (BBC News, 2 May 2013).

Sources

• Checchi, F. and Robinson, W. C. (2013). Mortality among populations of southern and central Somalia affected by severe food insecurity and famine during 2010–2012. FAO/FSNAU and FEWS NET, LSHTM and Johns Hopkins, 2 May 2013.
• UN News (2011). UN declares famine in two regions of southern Somalia, 20 July 2011.
• FSNAU (2011). Famine spreads into Bay region, 5 September 2011.
• FSNAU (2011). Famine continues; observed improvements contingent on continued response, 18 November 2011.
• FAO (2012). Somalia famine ends, but situation still dire, 3 February 2012.
• PBS NewsHour (2010). UN halts work in southern Somalia, 5 January 2010.
• Al Jazeera (2011). Somali group bans aid organisations, 28 November 2011.
• Al Jazeera (2012). Al-Shabab bans Red Cross from Somalia, 30 January 2012.
• BBC News (2013). Somalia famine 'killed 260,000 people', 2 May 2013.