2011 East Africa drought

2011 East Africa drought
Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) food security projection for East Africa at the height of the drought (July–Sept 2011).
Country	Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and neighboring countries[1]
Location	East Africa
Period	July 2011 – August 2012
Total deaths	50,000–260,000[2][3]
Death rate	0.6–2.8 per 10,000 per day[4]
Theory	severe drought, irregular rainfall
Relief	$1.3 billion[5]
Effect on demographics	9.5 million in need of assistance in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya[6]

Occurring between July 2011 and mid-2012, a severe drought affected the entire East African region.^[7] Said to be "the worst in 60 years",^[8] the drought caused a severe food crisis across Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya that threatened the livelihood of 9.5 million people.^[6] Many refugees from southern Somalia fled to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, where crowded, unsanitary conditions together with severe malnutrition led to a large number of deaths.^[9] Other countries in East Africa, including Sudan, South Sudan and parts of Uganda, were also affected by a food crisis.^{[8][10][11][12]}

According to FAO-Somalia, the food crisis in Somalia primarily affected farmers in the south rather than the northern pastoralists.^[13] Human Rights Watch (HRW) consequently noted that most of the displaced persons belonged to the agro-pastoral Rahanweyn clan and the agricultural Bantu ethnic minority group.^[14] On 20 July, the United Nations officially declared famine in two regions in the southern part of the country (IPC Phase 5), the first time a famine had been declared in the region by the UN in nearly thirty years.^[15][16] Tens of thousands of people are believed to have died in southern Somalia before famine was declared.^[15] This was mainly a result of Western governments preventing aid from reaching affected areas in an attempt to weaken the Al-Shabaab militant group, against whom they were engaged.^[17][18]

Although fighting disrupted aid delivery in some areas, a scaling up of relief operations in mid-November had unexpectedly significantly reduced malnutrition and mortality rates in southern Somalia, prompting the UN to downgrade the humanitarian situation in the Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabele regions from famine to emergency levels.^[19] According to the Lutheran World Federation, military activities in the country's southern conflict zones had also by early December 2011 greatly reduced the movement of migrants.^[20] By February 2012, several thousand people had also begun returning to their homes and farms.^[21] In addition, humanitarian access to rebel-controlled areas had improved and rainfall had surpassed expectations, improving the prospects of a good harvest in early 2012.^[19]

By January 2012, the food crisis in southern Somalia was no longer at emergency levels according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).^[22] The UN indicated in February 2012 that indirect data from health and relief centers pointed to improved general conditions from August 2011. The UN also announced that the famine in southern Somalia was over.^[23] However, FEWS NET indicated that Emergency (IPC Phase 4) levels of food insecurity persisted through March in several areas on account of crop flooding and ongoing military operations in these areas, which restricted humanitarian access, trade and movement.^[24]

Aid agencies subsequently shifted their emphasis to recovery efforts, including digging irrigation canals and distributing plant seeds.^[23] Long-term strategies by national governments in conjunction with development agencies were said to offer the most sustainable results.^[25]