Somalia's Famine Risk Window Stays Open Through January, FEWS NET Says

FEWS NET says it continues to see a credible risk of Famine (IPC Phase 5) in southern Somalia between October 2026 and January 2027, even after July's xagaa rains performed better than the agency had anticipated and allowed a partial crop recovery. The assessment appears in the agency's Somalia Food Security Outlook Update for August 2026 to January 2027, based on information available as of 31 August 2026.

Under what FEWS NET calls the most likely scenario, Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes with populations in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) are expected through January 2027 in the Bay Bakool Low Potential Agropastoral and Sorghum High Potential Agropastoral livelihood zones, in riverine livelihood zones other than Lower Shabelle, in the Southern Agropastoral Livelihood Zone of Hiiraan, and in multiple settlements for internally displaced people. Famine would become likely, the agency says, only if extreme and widespread flooding produced extensive agricultural losses and isolated communities from markets and lifesaving services for a prolonged period.

A short-lived harvest reprieve

Late-season rainfall and the stronger-than-expected July xagaa rains supported partial recovery from an overall poor 2026 gu season and boosted agricultural labour demand, according to FEWS NET. Total gu cereal production is now projected to exceed the 1995-2025 long-term average, though the agency notes that much of that output comes from maize-producing parts of the Riverine Gravity Irrigation Livelihood Zone. Poor households' stocks from own production and crop zakat are expected to cover consumption needs for roughly two to three months until the deyr season begins — a slight improvement on the earlier projection of at most two months.

On that basis, FEWS NET has revised the Sorghum High Potential Livelihood Zone of Bay and Gedo up to Crisis (IPC Phase 3) through September, while stating plainly that the gain will be short-lived and that deterioration to Emergency (IPC Phase 4) is expected from October. A second upward revision covers the Northern Inland Pastoral Livelihood Zone of Sanaag and Sool, where new information on conception rates and milk production prospects supports Crisis (IPC Phase 3) from October to January. West Golis Pastoral is now expected to hold at Stressed (IPC Phase 2) through January.

Elsewhere the agency's outlook has moved the other way. FEWS NET says it now expects a greater share of the population to face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse than it projected in June, driven by rising local and imported food and fuel prices tied to regional and global trade disruption. In Baidoa, the agency reports sorghum and maize prices up by approximately 68 percent relative to August 2025 and by approximately 42 percent relative to the five-year average. The Somali Shilling in Mogadishu's Bakaara market has depreciated by 27 percent against its August 2025 level and by 33 percent against the 2021-2025 five-year average, which FEWS NET says amplifies inflationary pressure and erodes purchasing power.

The flooding scenario and its climate framing

FEWS NET's alternative scenario centres on extreme, widespread flooding during the deyr season in southern agropastoral and riverine areas, which the agency assesses has a moderate likelihood of materialising. It cites general agreement among international forecasts that the ongoing strong El Niño will persist into 2027 and that a strong positive Indian Ocean Dipole will likely develop by August or September 2026; the update does not name individual forecasting centres, quote a specific ocean index such as the ONI or Niño 3.4, or describe the spread between models.

Among historical analogues with concurrent strong El Niño and strong positive IOD conditions, FEWS NET treats 2023 as the analogue for its most likely scenario and 1997 — which it describes as the worst flood year on record — as a plausible worst case. It also points to 2019, when ENSO conditions were neutral but an exceptionally strong positive IOD produced what the agency calls the second-worst flood year on record. In the worst-case path, heavy rains and flash flooding would likely begin atypically early in late September, destroying remaining off-season gu crops, suspending main-season deyr planting, and inundating the Baidoa, Jowhar, Beletweyne and Dolow IDP settlements. FEWS NET notes that repeated weather shocks and consecutive poor seasons produced Famine (IPC Phase 5) in southern agropastoral areas in 2011 and 2016/17 and brought the country close to Famine in 2022/23.

Nutrition and assistance

FEWS NET reports that April 2026 nutrition assessments in Bay agropastoral areas found GAM and SAM prevalences of 25.2 and 5.8 percent by weight-for-height z-score, a statistically significant rise from 19.5 and 4.4 percent recorded during the 2025 deyr lean season, with morbidity up from 30.5 to 36.4 percent. In Burhakaba district of Bay Region, the agency cites GAM of 37.1 percent and SAM of 10.2 percent, with GAM exceeding the Famine threshold, and maternal malnutrition in 27.3 percent of IDPs surveyed in Baidoa in April 2026.

Assistance remains, in FEWS NET's assessment, historically low and substantially below needs. Citing the Somalia Food Security Cluster, the agency reports 404,208 people reached in July 2026 and 439,194 planned for the current month, with an average of about 167,000 beneficiaries expected monthly in September and October and an estimated 39,000 in November.