“The United Nations declared today that famine exists in two regions of southern Somalia: southern Bakool, and Lower Shabelle,” a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia said.
Both are areas controlled by Al-Qaeda inspired Shebab insurgents.
“Across the country nearly half of the Somali population -- 3.7 million people -- are now in crisis, of whom an estimated 2.8 million people are in the south,” the statement read.
“Consecutive droughts have affected the country in the last few years, while the ongoing conflict has made it extremely difficult for agencies to operate and access communities in the south of the country,” it added.
Officials warned that unless urgent action was taken the areas afflicted by famine would grow.
“If we don’t act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks,” Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, told reporters.
Countries affected across the region include parts of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti, while the United States on Tuesday also urged secretive Eritrea to reveal how severely it has been hit by the drought.
Famine implies having less than 2,100 kilocalories of food per day, acute malnutrition in more than 30 percent of the children and two deaths per 10,000 people every day, according to the Integrated Phase Classification, a food security measure used by the UN and other relief agencies.
The Shebab expelled foreign aid groups two years ago, accusing them of being Western spies and Christian crusaders.