Abdul Mohammed

For families in parts of the Horn of Africa, the season has brought too little rain, failing crops and shrinking pasture. In some areas, October rainfall has been absent or very low. In others, the rains have arrived unevenly, after households have already lost livestock, depleted their savings or been driven from their homes by conflict. The result is a daily struggle to find food, water and safety.

Now the climate outlook points to a new danger, rising loss and damage to parts of the world that contributed very little to the major cause of climate change, greenhouse gases emission. Described by the African Union (AU) as the strongest since 1950, historic ‘super’ El Niño, this season’s El Niño is already very strong and is expected to persist into early 2027. For the Horn of Africa, as the chiefs of UNOCHA and WMO put it, it is going to be season of extreme weather ‘that threatens to inflict severe humanitarian and economic pressure on conflict-affected nations across (the region).’

For much of the equatorial and southern Greater Horn, the current forecast is for wetter-than-normal October–December rains, with heightened risks of flooding. That forecast means that people weakened by one shock may soon face another: destructive floods, damaged crops, lost livestock, cut-off roads and fresh displacement.

This is the human face of the climate induced super El Niño of 2026-2027 in the Horn: not a simple choice between drought and flood, but exposure to both, in a region where affected people have little left with which to withstand either.

The crisis is unfolding amid devastating wars in affected countries, with no clear end in sight for many of them. Sudan’s war has uprooted millions and helped drive one of the world’s gravest hunger emergencies. Fighting has also returned to northern Ethiopia, raising fears that a new conflict could spread beyond the country. In Somalia, insecurity continues to disrupt livelihoods, markets and aid delivery. As rivalry in the Red Sea intensifies, conflict and geopolitical confrontation are increasingly entangled with the region’s security and economic life. These are not separate theatres for the people caught between them. War destroys homes and farms, blocks roads, empties markets and makes it dangerous for humanitarian workers to reach those in need.

People are being trapped between war and environmental shock. A family fleeing violence may arrive in a drought-affected area with no land to cultivate and no livestock to sell. A pastoralist who has lost animals may have to travel farther for water, crossing into areas where insecurity or competition over scarce resources puts the family at risk. A farmer who has planted after a poor season may see a flood wash away the crop. Displacement then increases pressure on host communities already struggling to meet their own needs.

The numbers point to the scale of this exposure, but they cannot capture its daily cost. In Sudan, 19.5 million people face acute hunger, while funding shortfalls are forcing the World Food Programme to reduce assistance to 800,000 people through the end of 2026. In Somalia, 5.4 million people are projected to face crisis levels of hunger or worse between October and December. The United Nations and Somali authorities warn that El Niño-related floods could destroy crops, cut communities off from markets and trigger further displacement.

The scarcity is not only a scarcity of food. Humanitarian resources are shrinking just as needs are rising. In Somalia, funding shortages have already contributed to the closure or scaling back of health services, while many children and mothers are no longer receiving nutrition support. Across the region, insecure roads, restricted access and underfunded operations make it harder to deliver assistance even when it exists. When aid is cut, the consequences are immediate: a meal missed, treatment delayed, a child’s condition worsening, a family left without shelter or clean water.

Beyond humanitarian aid, the enormous human and socio-economic costs that societies that contributed little to climate change but bear the heavy brunt of this season’s El Niño highlights the urgency and imperative of responsible countries delivering on their commitments for adaptation and loss and damage. It is reported that the African Development Bank (AfDB) warned that the anticipated ‘super’ El Niño could inflict a combined 10 to 20 billion U.S. dollars economic hit on African countries, with adaptation finance requiring nearly 100 billion U.S. dollars.

The phrase ‘perfect storm’ is often used too easily. Here, it describes a real convergence of dangers: war, displacement, food insecurity, disrupted trade and rising costs, fragile health systems, climate extremes and a humanitarian response with diminishing capacity. Each pressure makes the others more dangerous. Conflict prevents people from adapting to climate shocks. Climate shocks deepen hunger and displacement. Displacement stretches already scarce services. Funding cuts leave families with fewer options to survive.

This convergence also connects with events beyond the region’s borders. In Sudan, the World Food Programme has warned that disruptions to maritime supply routes in the Red Sea are increasing fuel and fertilizer costs, while food prices remain high. For farmers, higher input costs can mean less fertilizer and lower production. For traders and aid agencies, fuel and transport costs determine how much food can reach a market or an isolated community. A conflict at sea can therefore compound hunger in a village far inland.

The challenge is to prepare for both sides of the forecast while protecting people now. This entails coming to the rescue of communities facing the immediate effects of poor rains, and those at risk from flooding in the weeks ahead.

To that end national and local authorities and non-state actors along with humanitarian responders and those who bear the most responsibility for climate change need to invest in protecting humanitarian access, restoring and sustaining food and nutrition assistance, preparing flood-prone areas, supporting local health services, and helping farmers and pastoralists preserve the means to recover. It also means confronting the political reality at the heart of the crisis: while wars continue, every drought, flood and price shock becomes more deadly.

As stressed by the chiefs of UNOCHA and WMO in a joint press briefing in Geneva, the people of the Horn are not facing the shock from the super El Niño in isolation. They are living through it amid war, displacement and the erosion of the support systems on which survival depends. They are caught between a season that has failed them and rains that may come too heavily, between conflict that drives them from home and aid that cannot reliably reach them. Their lives should not be reduced to a forecast or a statistic. They are a call for urgent action to end the wars, protect livelihoods and ensure that early warnings are matched by help before the next shock arrives. And importantly for countries that bear the most responsibility for climate change to make good on their commitments relating to financing of adaptation and loss and damage and for the upcoming COP31 as the ‘super’ El Niño COP to be where existing climate finance commitments will be delivered, as underscored in the extraordinary ministerial meeting of the AU held under the theme Strengthening Africa’s Preparedness, Resilience and Climate Action: Responding to the Anticipated 2026 El Niño while Advancing Africa’s Priorities Towards COP31 and COP32.