Fear of the F-word: Somalia avoids famine declaration as hunger spreads

Farhia Nur, 25, and her son have spent the last six months at the Xaaxaar IDP camp in the Galmudug region of Galkayo, Somalia. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

In Somalia, the word for famine is so little used that few people know it or its meaning; the word they use is simply abaar – drought.

Now, as the fifth failed rainy season draws near, the drought is the country’s worst in four decades, far worse than the one that had occurred by the time about a quarter of a million people died during the 2011 famine.