SITUATION OVERVIEW
Escalating humanitarian crisis in Puntland and Somaliland: Somalia is facing a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Puntland and Somaliland, where prolonged dry conditions have affected over 2.5 million people across 26 districts including 887,000 people in severely impacted areas. Rural communities are experiencing acute shortages of water and food, compounded by significant funding cuts that have severely weakened the humanitarian response. This is not a seasonal shock, it is a systemic collapse driven by climate change, insecurity and the erosion of essential services. Years of recurrent drought, environmental degradation and collapsing essential services have left communities on the brink.
The failure of the 2025 Gu rains, usually from March through April, has intensified an already dire situation. Communities now face the threat of another failed Deyr rainy season, from October through December. To ensure that the voices of affected communities are accurately reflected, the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS), with support from IFRC and partners, conducted a detailed humanitarian analysis between August and September 2025.
This analysis draws on SRCS-led assessments carried out through ongoing emergency response operations and long-term resilience programmes, including Enhanced Vulnerability & Capacity Assessments (eVCA), which capture community perspectives. The report also incorporates appeals from local authorities, from findings by the Inter-Agency Drought Assessment in Puntland and Somaliland, and from Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) 2 projections for October through December 2025, published on 23 September. Together these sources provide a comprehensive picture of the humanitarian situation and inform coordinated response planning.
Funding shortfalls and operational collapse: The crisis is being exacerbated by a sharp reduction in global funding. The operational environment has deteriorated significantly, with widespread funding cuts forcing the suspension of essential services, including targeted supplementary feeding programmes, immunization campaigns and basic health and education services. These are not temporary disruptions, they represent a structural weakening of the humanitarian architecture.
The result is a widening gap between escalating needs and shrinking response capacity, with women and children bearing the heaviest burden. Community coping mechanisms and services at the breaking point: Community coping systems are woefully overtaxed. Communities have been sharing resources, relocating and activating traditional safety nets. But without urgent support, these coping systems are at risk of collapsing. Water scarcity has reached critical levels too. Repeated climate shocks have pushed traditional water sources to the brink, have disrupted agricultural recovery and have triggered widespread displacement. Strategic boreholes are non-functional, water trucking is unaffordable, and contamination is widespread.
