http://news.trust.org/item/20170127113908-241ue/
Starvation looms for 6 mln children in Horn of Africa, charity says
by Katy Migiro <
http://news.trust.org/profile/?id=003D0000017igCgIAI> |
_at_katymigiro <
http://www.twitter.com/_at_katymigiro> | Thomson Reuters
Foundation
Friday, 27 January 2017 11:33 GMT
Kadija Mohamed cooks food for her children in a camp set up for internally
displaced people in Dinsoor in this archive picture from 2012.
REUTERS/Feisal Omar
500,000 children already have severe acute malnutrition and risk dying
without emergency intervention
By Katy Migiro
NAIROBI, Jan 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Hunger, malnutrition and
death threaten 6.5 million children in the impoverished drylands of
Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya due to back-to-back droughts, a charity said on
Friday, with spring rains also predicted to be poor.
Repeated rain failures have pushed 15 million people across the three
countries into crisis, and in need of aid, as their animals are dying and
water is in short supply, Save the Children said in a statement.
"The situation for already desperate children and families in Somalia,
Ethiopia and Kenya will only get worse - leaving millions at risk of
hunger, and even death," the charity's Ethiopia country director, John
Graham, said.
The next rainy season is likely to bring more below-average rainfall across
the region, experts predict.
Almost 500,000 children already have severe acute malnutrition, Save the
Children said, which means they risk dying without emergency intervention.
Donors, political leaders and the new United Nations Secretary António
Guterres are meeting at the African Union (AU) summit which opens on Monday
in Ethiopia.
Guterres was the U.N.'s refugee chief during Somalia's 2011 famine, in
which 260,000 died due to drought, conflict and a ban on food aid in
territory held by the Islamist militant group, al Shabaab.
The U.N. warned this month that Somalia, crippled by decades of war, risks
slipping back into famine as five million people, or more than four out of
10 residents, do not have enough food.
Fighting between al Shabaab and Somalia's AU-backed government continues,
with 28 killed on Wednesday in an attack in the capital, Mogadishu.
AU and Somali troops have driven al Shabaab from major urban strongholds
and ports, but they have often struggled to defend smaller, more remote
areas from attacks.
Thousands of Somalis are on the move in search of food and water, many
crossing into Ethiopia for assistance, charities say.
Save the Children said there are high rates of malnutrition among children
on arrival in Ethiopia's vast Dollo Ado camp.
Many Somalis have been living in exile for three decades, with almost one
million in refugee camps in nearby Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda,
where food is also in short supply due to lack of funding.
In Ethiopia, hard hit by drought in 2016, almost six million people need
aid. The Kenya Red Cross Society launched an appeal to the public on Friday
for 1 billion Kenyan shillings ($9.6 million) to provide food vouchers and
cash to thousands of hungry families in the north and along the coast.
As livestock deaths are increasing, weak animals will also be slaughtered
and the meat donated to schools, orphans, the elderly and sick, it said.
It predicted the number of Kenyans without enough to eat would almost
double by April to 2.4 million from 1.3 million.
"The effects of the drought are escalating," said Abbas Gullet, Kenya Red
Cross Society's secretary general. "This should worry us all." ($1 =
103.9000 Kenyan shillings)
(Reporting by Katy Migiro _at_katymigiro; Editing by Ros Russell; Please
credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson
Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking,
property rights and climate change. Visit
http://news.trust.org to see more
stories.)
Received on Sat Jan 28 2017 - 11:33:39 EST