Dujarric explained that the reduction in funding is not due to a decrease in humanitarian needs but rather results from a shortage of resources and funding.

He added that many critical services will be scaled down, as less than half of the people in need will receive assistance.

The spokesperson warned that without a rapid increase in aid, prolonged drought, food insecurity, displacement, disease, and reduced humanitarian support will worsen malnutrition, water scarcity, and health risks.

He noted that last year, the United Nations requested $1.4 billion but received only $397 million (27%), forcing aid agencies to reduce or suspend life-saving assistance.

Meanwhile, this announcement comes a month after Israel declared that it recognizes Somaliland as an independent state. Somaliland declared independence in 1991 but has never received international recognition.

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Among the thousands who fled is 42-year-old Halima Ahmed, who now sits under a patchwork tent on the outskirts of Beledweyne, clutching a tattered identity card and her youngest child.

“We run, we return, we run again,” she says. “Each time we lose something – a house, a relative, a piece of ourselves.”

Her story has become a familiar refrain across the river valleys of Middle and Lower Shabelle and the plains of Hiiraan. In this region, the heartland of Somalia’s struggle against Al-Shabab – entire communities are living in cycles of displacement, driven by a conflict that grinds on with devastating predictability.

A Crisis Renewed

According to new data from the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) and other humanitarian monitors, nearly 700,000 people have been newly displaced across central Somalia this year alone.

Many fled after a series of Al-Shabab offensives that overran or encircled towns once thought secure under federal or regional control.

Between April 2023 and March 2025, the UNHCR’s Protection and Return Monitoring Network (PRMN) reported that conflict and insecurity were responsible for displacing roughly 600,000 people, part of a total of approximately 2.79 million newly displaced during that period.

Humanitarian access has collapsedin many of these areas. Aid convoys risk ambush; clinics have shuttered for lack of supplies.

“We can no longer tell whether we are moving forward or backward,” a senior aid coordinator in Mogadishu said.

“Every time we stabilize one district, the conflict shifts to another.”

Al-Shabab’s strategy, analysts say, has evolved.

Rather than holding territory, the group now seeks to punish local resistance and exhaust the population, creating a state of perpetual insecurity that undermines government authority even without direct control.

Humanitarian agencies face serious challenges delivering aid due to conflict, targeted attacks on aid workers, restrictions imposed by warring parties, including arbitrary taxation and bureaucratic hurdles, and physical constraints.

The Vanishing Towns

Images shared with agencies show concentric rings of destruction in rural Hiiraan, burnt croplands, collapsed homes, and expanding IDP settlements along riverbanks, according to a senior aid coordinator based in Mogadishu who had accessed the images.

Approximately 3.7 million people are currently internally displaced in Somalia, with worsening food insecurity closely linked to ongoing displacement patterns.

In Mahaas, once a trading hub linking Beledweyne and Mahas, schools have been closed, and some repurposed as makeshift barracks; classrooms now bear bullet scars.

Government forces, supported by clan militias, have retaken some positions, but without the resources to hold them.

The result is a slow, silent depopulation.

Towns empty out not in single mass exoduses but in waves, a few families at a time as fear outweighs the hope of rebuilding.

Humanitarian Gaps and Political Fault Lines

The displacement crisis is not only a humanitarian disaster but also a political one.

Relief agencies warn that federal-state rivalries, overlapping jurisdictions, and inconsistent security coordination have left many displaced communities stranded between administrations.

Local officials in Hirshabelle, and Galmudug accuse Mogadishu of neglect; federal ministries blame donors for shrinking aid budgets.

Meanwhile, Al-Shabab continues to exploit the vacuum, levying “taxes” on trade routes and offering rudimentary justice in areas where formal courts no longer function.

A senior regional officer in Beledweyne described the situation bluntly:

“We are fighting an enemy that does not need to win, it just needs us to fail.”

Lives in Limbo

In Beledweyne’s sprawling displacement camp known as Xaawo Taako, tents stretch beyond sight. Children with dust-coated faces chase each other between rows of water jerrycans.

Aid workers estimate that nearly 30,000 new arrivals have settled here since July.

Halima, the mother from Buq-Aqable, receives a small ration every two weeks, a sack of flour, some oil, and sometimes beans. Her husband remains missing, last seen when the militants attacked their village.

“They say peace will come,” she says softly. “But peace never stays.”

For many, the cycle of return and flight has eroded the very idea of home. The line between refugee and resident blurs.

“We are not moving toward anything,” said one local elder.

“We are only moving away.”

Somalia’s military campaign, once buoyed by international backing and domestic enthusiasm, is straining.

The drawdown of the African Union Transition Mission (ATMIS), now replaced by the under-resourced AUSSOM force, has left security vacuumsin critical corridors.

Meanwhile, the Somali National Army remains underpaid and overstretched.

Analysts warn that without sustained funding and coordination, recent territorial gains could unravel. “Security progress in Somalia is like a sandcastle,” said a foreign diplomat familiar with the region.

“Every tide of violence reshapes it.”

The government in Mogadishu insists it remains committed to stabilization, pointing to new local reconciliation initiatives and drone-assisted counterterrorism operations. But on the ground, such victories feel distant.

Prospects and Pitfalls Ahead

As dusk falls over Beledweyne, the displaced begin lighting small fires to cook what little food they have. The horizon glows orange, from both the setting sun and the flames of distant skirmishes.

Somalia’s war has entered a phase where victory is measured not in captured territory, but in human endurance, the ability of families to rebuild, flee again, and somehow continue existing amid endless disruption.

For Halima and thousands like her, the question is no longer when they will return home, but whether home, as they once knew it, still exists.

— A local reporter in Beledweyne has contributed to this report

Abdi Guled is a Horn of Africa analyst and journalist with a focus on political risk, armed groups, and geostrategic competition in fragile states.

The post Drifting Towns, Drifting People: How Al-Shabab’s Raids Unmake Central Somalia appeared first on Kaab TV.

The sound of heavy gunfire and shelling shattered her last hopes of staying. Carrying her children, she escaped under fire, seeking safety in a life still clouded by uncertainty.

“War, suffering, and explosions drove us out,” Jawaahir said, sitting at the doorway of her makeshift hut in an overcrowded camp for displaced people, the heat of the midday sun visible on her face.

After days on the road, she arrived at Barxad-weyn camp in Kaxda district, Mogadishu. But survival here comes with new challenges: no clean water, inadequate shelter, little food, and no access to healthcare.

“Sometimes food is cooked in the camp and shared in spoonfuls,” she said. The biggest struggle, however, is clean water. “Two jerrycans cost 3,000 shillings (USD 0.15). If you don’t have money, you don’t get water.”

Camp “gatekeepers,” who control settlements, are accused of charging rent for plots of land while also taking a share of aid meant for displaced families.

Faadumo Abdulkadir, a widow with six children, fled Sabiid and Caanoole near Afgooye after Al-Shabaab retook the area last month. When Kaab TV visited, she and other women were busy building a small hut to shelter her children.

“I’ve been here four days. We fled war and hunger,” she said. “I have no money for my children’s education. We all sleep together in this tiny hut.”

War and Climate Fuel Displacement

Somalia continues to reel from a cycle of conflict, droughts, floods, and insecurity, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. Aid agencies estimate that more than 3.3 million people are currently displaced inside the country.

Overcrowded camps lack safety, and women—especially those without male relatives—face frequent nighttime attacks by armed men.

Ca’isha Adam Mohamed, a mother of three—two of them orphans—escaped her village near Bariire, Middle Shabelle, during recent fighting between African Union and Somali troops against Al-Shabaab.

“Mortar shells landed on our village. I fled on foot with my children until we found a vehicle near Afgooye,” she said. Now living with her father, who pushes a cart in Mogadishu to feed the family, she describes nights when her children go to sleep crying from hunger.

Aid Cuts Deepen Crisis

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) recently warned that sharp cuts in humanitarian funding have left more than 300,000 Somalis without food and clean water assistance, raising the risk of preventable diseases.

“Somalia is being pushed to the brink by the combined impact of relentless conflict, climate extremes, and a sharp drop in international support,” said Mohamed Abdi, NRC’s Country Director in Somalia.

“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.”

Earlier this year, the United Nations appealed for $1.42 billion to assist 4.6 million Somalis, but so far only 17% of that has been funded. As a result, aid groups have been forced to scale back, leaving millions of vulnerable families without support.

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