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Some 8.3 million Somalis, almost half the population, require
urgent humanitarian assistance, Guterres said, adding that only
15% of the country's $2.6 billion aid requirement for this year
has been met.
"When famine looms, this is totally unacceptable," Guterres told
reporters in Mogadishu.
He was speaking after visiting a camp in Baidoa, south-west
Somalia, for people displaced by the drought and by fighting
between al Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliate, and government
forces.
"It is unconscionable that Somalis, who have done almost nothing
to create the climate crisis, are suffering its terrible
impact," Guterres said. "Climate change is causing chaos."
After five consecutive failed rainy seasons, the drought has
displaced 1.4 million Somalis, with women and children making up
80% of them, he said.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which
sets the global standard for determining the severity of a food
crisis, said last December that famine had been temporarily
averted but warned the situation was getting worse.
A major government offensive backed by allied clan militias has
captured around a third of al Shabaab's territory, the U.S.
ambassador to Somalia told Voice of America in March.
The government claims to have killed 3,000 al Shabaab fighters
since the campaign was launched last year, but the militant
group has repeatedly shown its ability to strike back in deadly
attacks on Mogadishu.
The army and its clan allies are expected to start a second
phase of the operation, backed by the African Union Transition
Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), in the coming weeks.
(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu and Hereward Holland in
Nairobi; Editing by Estelle Shirbon and Bernadette Baum)
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