United Nations Secretary‑General António Guterres arrived in Mogadishu on Tuesday to begin a brief visit to Somalia, a nation scarred by protracted armed conflict and climate disasters. He received a red‑carpet welcome at the capital’s airport from Somalia’s Foreign Minister Abshir Omar Huruse, who posted pictures of the event on Twitter. For the duration of the visit, the government imposed a security lockdown on Mogadishu, closing most roads and restricting public transport.
Guterres’s trip comes as Somalia grapples with a calamitous drought that has pushed many people to the brink of famine, while the government conducts a major offensive against a bloody Islamist insurgency. The UN chief, who last visited Somalia in March 2017, is scheduled to hold talks with political leaders and to visit a camp for internally displaced persons, according to local media reports. The United Nations has launched a $2.6 billion appeal for humanitarian aid for the troubled Horn of Africa nation, but the appeal is currently only 13 percent funded.
Five consecutive failed rainy seasons in parts of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia have produced the worst drought in four decades, wiping out livestock and crops and forcing at least 1.7 million people to leave their homes in search of food and water. Although famine thresholds have not yet been reached in Somalia, the UN estimates that about half the population will need humanitarian assistance this year, with 8.3 million people affected by the drought. “The crisis is far from over — needs remain high and urgent,” said Adam Abdelmoula, the UN’s resident coordinator for Somalia, in Geneva last week. “Some of the most affected areas continue to face the risk of famine.” Seasonal rains in March caused flooding that claimed 21 lives and displaced more than 100 000 people, and Abdelmoula warned that the rains are unlikely to improve the food‑security outlook for many.
Somalia was hit by a famine in 2011 that killed 260 000 people, more than half of them children under six, partly because the international community did not act quickly enough, according to the UN. A joint UN‑Somali government report released in March said that the drought may have caused 43 000 “excess deaths” last year, with children under five accounting for half of the victims. One of the poorest countries on the planet, Somalia has been wracked by decades of civil war, political violence and a bloody insurgency by the Al‑Qaeda affiliate Al Shabaab. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared an “all‑out war” against the militants last year and, in September, sent troops to support an uprising by local clan militias in central Somalia.
In recent months, the Somali army and the militias known as “Macawisley” have retaken swathes of territory in an operation backed by the African Union force ATMIS and U.S. air strikes. The government claimed late last month that more than 3 000 Al Shabaab fighters had been killed since the offensive began and announced that 70 towns and villages had been “liberated” from the group, which has fought the fragile central government for more than 15 years. Independent verification of these claims was not possible. Al Shabaab has frequently retaliated with bloody attacks, demonstrating its capacity to strike civilian, political and military targets despite government advances. In a report to the UN Security Council in February, Guterres said that 2022 was the deadliest year for civilians in Somalia since 2017, largely as a result of Al Shabaab attacks.
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