A region under pressure
Baidoa, the capital of the Bay Region in Somalia's Southwest State, has long served as a refuge for people fleeing drought, flooding, conflict and food insecurity. Today, it hosts hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people alongside its host community, placing growing pressure on health services. Hospitals are seeing a sharp rise in children with severe acute malnutrition.
Sixty kilometers to the southeast, the rural district of Burhakaba is home to more than 200,000 people spread across nearly 400 villages. Consecutive failed rainy seasons, prolonged drought and repeated crop failures have forced families to reduce the number of meals they eat or travel long distances in search of food, water and healthcare. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which measures the severity of hunger crises, issued a Risk of Famine statement for Burhakaba.
Children caught in a cycle of malnutrition
Hospital admission data from Baidoa District Hospital and Bayhow District Hospital show how quickly the crisis is worsening. Between January and July 2026, 1,607 children under five with complicated severe acute malnutrition were admitted for inpatient treatment – a 140% increase compared with the same period in 2025. In just seven months, admissions had already surpassed the totals recorded during the whole of either 2024 or 2025.
The sharpest increase came between April and June, when the pressure at Bayhow Hospital became so severe that its main pediatric ward had to be used for children requiring inpatient nutrition treatment.
The scale of malnutrition is evident across Baidoa’s displacement sites. A July survey by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) across displacement sites in Baidoa found that one in two children screened were acutely malnourished and one in four were severely malnourished. One in three families surveyed were surviving on just one meal a day.
Shukri Adan, 33, arrived at one of the displacement sites with her six children after their family lost its livelihood to the relentless drought in their rural community in Tiyeglow District, more than 100 km from Baidoa.
"One by one, our goats and cows died. For days, we had no food, no water, and no one came to help us. I watched my children grow weaker each day, and I truly believed we would die of hunger before we could reach help. Walking for four days was our only chance to keep them alive."
At the stabilization center supported by SOS Children’s Villages at Burhakaba District Hospital, teams are seeing children recover from severe acute malnutrition only to return to the same conditions that made them sick.
“Over the past six months, our Stabilization Center at Burhakaba District Hospital in Bay Region has treated 350 children with severe acute malnutrition. Yet treatment alone cannot break the cycle,” says Hassan Mohamed, Humanitarian Coordinator for SOS Children’s Villages in Somalia. “After weeks of recovery, mothers return home, often 30 to 40 kilometers away, to the same food insecurity that made their children sick. Too often, they return carrying the same child – or another child – who is once again suffering from severe malnutrition.”
Poor sanitation, low vaccination coverage and limited access to essential services further increase the risks facing malnourished children, raising concerns about an increase in preventable child deaths.
Responding as needs continue to rise
SOS Children’s Villages is one of the few remaining international organizations responding in Burhakaba. Working with the Southwest Ministry of Health and local humanitarian partners, teams provide health, nutrition, protection and emergency education services to displaced people and vulnerable host communities.
Through mobile service sites and fixed health facilities, including the district’s only 16-bed stabilization center, the response reaches more than 9,000 people each month. Four additional mobile sites became operational in August to extend support to communities as needs continue to rise.
But the ability to respond to growing needs is increasingly constrained by a wider funding crisis. Across Somalia, nearly 6.5 million people are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity, and more than 1.8 million children are suffering from acute malnutrition. At the same time, resources for humanitarian response are shrinking. Somalia’s 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan calls for US$852 million – 40% less than in 2025. Even the reduced plan has only been 30% funded. Severe funding shortfalls have already forced around 500 primary healthcare facilities nationwide to close, with many more facing imminent closures.
“This is not only a funding gap. It is a failure of prioritisation and a blow to humanitarian action. Somalia does not need sympathy alone. It needs urgent action, political attention, and immediate financing,” warns the Joining Forces Alliance, which brings together SOS Children’s Villages International and five other child-focused organizations.
What children and families need now
The alliance is calling on decision-makers and donors to immediately allocate additional emergency resources to Somalia and increase multi-year investments in early humanitarian response, resilience and recovery.
Alongside life-saving health services, families need access to food, safe water and sanitation, as well as support to rebuild livelihoods and strengthen their resilience to recurring drought.
The tools and experience to prevent further deterioration already exist. In 2022, coordinated donor action helped avert famine in Somalia, demonstrating what sustained humanitarian support can achieve.
With Burhakaba now facing a risk of famine and needs rising across the country, those lessons must translate into action. Adequate and sustained funding is urgently needed to protect children from hunger, displacement, disease and preventable loss of life.
Learn more from SOS Children's Villages in Somalia