Malnourished children getting treatment at the IDP camp in Baidoa, Somalia, Tuesday, March 7, 2017, where the drought is severe. Visibly shocked by the suffering of malnourished Somalis and cholera victims during an emergency visit, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged international support to alleviate Somalia’s severe hunger crisis. Every single person we have seen is a personal story of tremendous suffering. There is no way to describe it,” Guterres said after seeing skeletal men, women and children in a cholera ward in Baidoa, 243 kilometers (151 miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu. . (AP Photo/Khaled Kazziha)
Malnourished children getting treatment at the IDP camp in Baidoa, Somalia, Tuesday, March 7, 2017, where the drought is severe. Visibly shocked by the suffering of malnourished Somalis and cholera victims during an emergency visit, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged international support to alleviate Somalia’s severe hunger crisis. Every single person we have seen is a personal story of tremendous suffering. There is no way to describe it,” Guterres said after seeing skeletal men, women and children in a cholera ward in Baidoa, 243 kilometers (151 miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu. . (AP Photo/Khaled Kazziha) Credit: Khaled Kazziha

Baidoa, Somalia — The new leader of the United Nations visited Somalia on Tuesday to issue a global appeal for aid as the war-torn nation teeters on the brink of its second famine in a decade.

It was Antonio Guterres’ first field visit as U.N. secretary general, a position the former Portugal prime minister assumes during a time of historic humanitarian crises. South Sudan recently declared a famine, and three other countries — Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria — are on the cusp of similar disasters.

“Conflict, drought, disease — the combination is a nightmare,” Guterres said on Tuesday.

More than 6 million Somalis, about half of the country’s population, are grappling with severe food shortages, according to the United Nations. At least 110 people, mostly women and children, died of malnutrition or a related disease in a two-day period in just one region earlier this month, according to the country’s prime minister.

Somalia’s hunger crisis is the result of two major factors — droughts that have badly damaged the country’s agricultural production and a protracted conflict that has obstructed humanitarian access to affected areas. Further complicating matters is the recent spread of cholera, which left 38 people dead last week.

In 2011, famine consumed much of the Horn of Africa, killing nearly 260,000 people in Somalia alone, according to the United Nations. The international community subsequently determined that more must be done to prevent a similar disaster in the future. Yet as one of the U.N. officials briefing Guterres on Tuesday made clear, a lack of funding last year to help Somalis affected by drought contributed to the current crisis.