The closure of the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes — is sending shockwaves far beyond global energy markets, driving up the cost of delivering humanitarian aid to some of the world's most vulnerable populations. Nowhere is the impact more acute than Somalia, where a pre-existing hunger emergency is being pushed toward catastrophe by supply chain disruptions and fuel price spikes.

The World Food Program (WFP), which operates extensively in Somalia, is reporting fuel cost increases of as much as 150 percent in-country, with shipments of lifesaving food arriving weeks late. Matthew Hollingworth, WFP's assistant executive director for programme operations, speaking from Mogadishu, described a recent food shipment that arrived 30 days behind schedule. "During that period, we simply didn't have enough assistance," he said. The delays compound an already desperate situation: three consecutive failed rainy seasons have left more than two million Somalis facing severe hunger, with Puntland — a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Somalia — identified as one of the worst malnutrition hotspots in the world. Hollingworth described dried-up water reservoirs, fields of dead livestock, and families stripped of all assets.

The human cost is stark. Hollingworth said WFP can currently reach only about one in ten people it would typically assist, forcing impossible choices on families — which child eats today, which child attends school. At mother-and-child health centres, staff are warning parents that support may soon run out entirely. The crisis is being driven by a combination of rising prices, slower global supply chains, and a chronic funding shortfall that predates the Hormuz closure but is now severely worsened by it. Hollingworth called explicitly for a ceasefire and a permanent reopening of the strait, warning that food is becoming "prohibitively expensive for the poorest around the world."

The ripple effects of the strait's closure are being felt well beyond the Horn of Africa. The Falkland Islands — a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic that, as one local lawmaker noted, sits "at the tail end of global distribution" — has commissioned a government report into the conflict's potential impacts. Authorities there are reviewing contingency plans for fuel storage, shipping resilience, hospital medicine supplies, and fresh produce sourcing, reflecting how deeply disruptions to a single strategic waterway can reverberate across global logistics networks.

For Somalia and its neighbours — including Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, all of which are experiencing their own instability — the consequences extend beyond hunger. Hollingworth warned that worsening conditions risk triggering further internal displacement and cross-border refugee movements, with implications for regional security. The situation underscores how geopolitical crises in one part of the world can rapidly translate into life-and-death emergencies thousands of kilometres away, particularly for nations with little buffer against external shocks.