British For­eign Sec­re­tary Boris John­son ar­rived in the So­mali cap­i­tal Mo­gadishu on Wednes­day on a sur­prise visit.

Mr. John­son met with So­mali Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ab­dul­lahi Far­majo to dis­cuss the wors­en­ing drought amid warn­ings from aid groups that So­ma­lia is at risk of slip­ping into a famine.

Roughly 6 mil­lion peo­ple in the Horn of Africa na­tion – or half the pop­u­la­tion are fac­ing se­ri­ous food in­se­cu­rity.

An over­whelmed and un­der­funded UN is fac­ing an un­prece­dented hu­man­i­tar­ian cri­sis as Su­dan is in the midst of a full-blown famine and three other na­tions, in­clud­ing So­ma­lia, Yemen and North­east Nige­ria are at a a cred­i­ble risk of slip­ping into a famine.

In late Feb­ru­ary Brit­ian pledged £100 mil­lion each in UK aid to So­ma­lia and South Su­dan.

Just two days ago, The UK Gov­ern­ment an­nounced it will fund a £16 mil­lion pro­gramme to help avert famine in So­ma­lia over the com­ing months. The emere­gency fund­ing will sup­port more than 450 000 peo­ple with life-sav­ing in­ter­ven­tions and par­tic­u­larly food and wa­ter sup­port.

Britain also an­nounced on Wednes­day that it would match “pound for pound” the first £5 mil­lion do­nated by the pub­lic to the Dis­as­ters Emer­gency Com­mit­tee’s new East Africa Cri­sis Ap­peal.

Af­ter a re­cent visit to So­ma­lia, UN hu­man­i­tar­ian chief Stephen O’Brien said 2.9 mil­lion peo­ple in So­ma­lia are at risk of famine and re­quire im­me­di­ate help “to save or sus­tain their lives”.