Around three million people need humanitarian assistance or livelihood support in Somalia, said the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia on May 8. Philippe Lazzarini was updating United Nations member states in New York on the humanitarian and development situation in the country.
“We have a post-conflict situation but we also have a conflict existing. We have military operations but we also have different stages of recovery and development,” he said, according to a UN news report.
About 740,000 are unable to meet food needs, 200,000 children are severely malnourished and the country has one million internally displaced people, he said. The country is also susceptible to natural disasters and food insecurity, he added.
Lazzerini also pointed several achievements, including the controlling of a polio outbreak. Around four million people were vaccinated in an immunisation drive to arrest the outbreak.