The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has sounded the alarm over a deepening humanitarian crisis in Somalia, where more than 300,000 people have lost access to safe water due to drastic funding shortfalls.
The collapse of water, sanitation, and hygiene services is accelerating outbreaks of preventable diseases, including cholera and acute watery diarrhoea, with aid agencies warning of a looming catastrophe.
According to NRC, the funding gap has left displaced families and rural communities in overcrowded settlements without reliable water trucking or sanitation systems.
Water and sanitation funding stands at less than 12 percent of what is needed, forcing humanitarian agencies to scale back or shut down vital services.
At the start of 2025, the United Nations launched a $1.42 billion appeal to assist 4.6 million Somalis.
Yet only 17 percent of that target has been met, compelling aid agencies to slash their response plans by 72 percent and reach just 1.3 million people with a reduced budget of Ksh 47.34 billion.
“The scale down of the humanitarian response in Somalia does not mean fewer people need aid; it means more than three million Somalis will be left to fend for themselves,” said Mohamed Abdi, NRC’s Country Director in Somalia.
“These cuts are costing lives. We are already seeing a deadly rise in waterborne diseases, especially among children under five. Families are walking for hours to find water, often dirty and unsafe, because the water points they once depended on have gone dry.”
From January to July this year, Somalia recorded more than 6,550 cholera and acute watery diarrhoea cases, including nine deaths. Over 1,000 new cases were reported in the last month alone, nearly two-thirds of them severe and half involving children under five.
The crisis has also forced the closure of more than 150 health facilities linked to water and sanitation systems.
In Southwest State, the number of mobile health teams has dropped from 74 to just 25, leaving vast communities without basic healthcare.
For displaced families like that of Hawa Ali, a mother of eight living in a camp in Baidoa, the water shortage has become a daily struggle.
“Before, we could fetch water from a nearby water point. Now, we walk for hours looking for water, and sometimes there is no water at all,” she said.
“Our children fall sick, and there is nothing we can do about it.”
The hardest-hit regions include Bay, Bakool, Gedo, Galgaduud, Hiraan, Mudug, and Lower Shabelle, where humanitarian-run water systems have shut down due to lack of funds.
In drought-affected areas, water prices have nearly doubled, from KSh 9,000 to KSh 16,000 for 10,000 litres, placing clean water far beyond the reach of many families.
Authorities in Puntland have appealed for support to assist 800,000 people whose water sources have dried up, while in Somaliland, an ongoing drought emergency has left some 650,000 in urgent need of help.
“Somalia is being pushed to the brink by the combined impact of relentless conflict, climate extremes, and a sharp drop in international support,” Abdi warned.
“We are seeing the human cost of inaction every day, in the suffering of children too weak to walk, in the empty jerrycans, and in the avoidable deaths from waterborne diseases. This is a man-made disaster that can still be prevented.”