A woman holding her young malnourished baby queues for food at the Badbado refugee camp, in Mogadishu, Somalia (photo on Flickr by United Nations/Stuart Price). 

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) and the Food Security and Analysis Unit (FSNAU) report that in Somalia, in addition to the five areas where famine has already been declared, all of Bay region has now met the three famine criteria and 25–75 per cent of poor agropastoral households in Gedo and Juba and pastoral households in Bakool face famine level of food deficits.

Despite a large-scale increase in humanitarian response, evidence suggests that food security in agropastoral and riverine areas of the south will deteriorate further over the coming four months. Famine is considered likely by Dec 2011 in agropastoral and riverine areas of Gedo and Juba, and agropastoral of Middle Shabelle and Hiran. Concerns persist regarding pastoral populations in northeast and northwest, agropastoralists in the Cowpea Belt of central, and coastal livelihoods of central where half of pastoralists have lost all livestock and are destitute.

In total, 4.0 million people are in crisis nationwide.

Read the whole update at FEWS Net: Famine in southern Somalia, 2 Sep 2011.