The Norwegian Refugee Council said hundreds of thousands of children were already suffering malnutrition in Somalia and millions had abandoned their homes in search of food in the arid, conflict-torn nation.
Victor Moses, the council’s country director in Somalia, said in a statement that The failure of the so-called long rains that usually sweep East Africa between March and May has caused widespread crop failures and heaped immense pressure on livestock-dependent communities in the greater region.
Somalia is enduring its third-driest long rains season since 1981.
The United Nations estimates that 1.7 million people are going hungry, with that figure expected to grow by another half a million come July.
Last week, the UN said 44,000 Somalis had left their homes in rural areas for urban centres just this year — joining the estimated 2.6 million internally-displaced people across the country.
Close to a million children will need treatment for malnutrition in 2019.