THE UNITED NATIONS says famine has spread to another region of Somalia, meaning half of the country’s south is now affected by the worst famine in decades.

The UN this morning said that four of the eight regions in southern Somalia were now suffering from famine, with 750,000 people are at risk of death in the next four months if there is no adequate response.

The Bay region is now in a state of famine, in addition to the Afgoye area outside the capital of Mogadishu, the Bakool region in the south and the Lower Shabelle area.

The UN’s press release said that as many as four million Somalis would be affected in some way by the crisis.

Somalia has been hit the hardest hit by the recent drought in the Horn of Africa, which is the worst to hit the area for half a century.

Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have also been ravaged by the severe food shortage.

The UN formally declares a famine situation when at least a fifth of households in an area face extreme food shortages, and where acute malnutrition rates are over 30 per cent.

Hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees are living in UN and governmental camps.

The following gallery, courtesy of Oxfam, shows the impact that the famine has had on individual people there.