He told the Irish Mirror that he has never seen things so bad and that up to 60,000 children in Kenya alone are at risk of dying due to malnutrition.

Paul Healy, Trócaire’s Kenya Country Director, with Brother Hans Wannakas (78) who is head of the Nadopoyen Centre for Street Children in Lodwar Town, northern Kenya. Brother Hans has been based in Kenya since 1985 and in Lodwar since 1995. He is a member of the Brothers of Utrecht, an order based in Holland. (Image: David O'Hare/Trócaire)

And he said that there is a serious threat of famine across South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia due to prolonged drought.

The 58-year-old, who is currently based with the charity in Kenya’s largest city Nairobi, said: “The scale of the crisis is enormous. There are almost 24 million people facing the threat of starvation over the coming months.

“That is over four times the entire population of the island of Ireland. Over 500,000 children under the age of 5 in Kenya alone are suffering from malnutrition – 60,000 of them are at immediate risk of death unless they receive food aid.

“The numbers are staggering but, for some reason, the crisis has received very little attention.

“The UN has said that this is potentially the worst crisis the world has faced since the end of World War II but funding has been very slow to materialise.

“People are distracted by Donald Trump and aren’t paying attention to what is the biggest story in the world.

“There are 30 thousand people on the verge of starvation and it’s not even getting news coverage.

“Trump is getting more for his total denial of climate change when people are on the verge of starvation due to such climate change. I cannot understand it.”

And Paul said that he witnessed a young child in Turkana in Kenya whose upper arms were the same size as his thumb.

He added: “I was looking at a one-year-old child called Meshak in a sponsored clinic being measured and his upper arm circumference was the size of a thumb.

“Now that is deeply disturbing to any rational human being that has an ounce of human values, you would be disturbed by it.

“His mother had brought him to Trocaire’s centre two months ago. He was dangerously malnourished.

“Meshak was in a really bad way but after two months of treatment he has put on a lot of weight and is back to full health.

“It shows you what can be done when we can get food to these children, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of children like Meshak who aren’t getting the aid they need.”

He continued: “You can cry all you like about it and shout but it seems that for some reason this time around the global community has not got the message.

“The local health service found that 12% of all children under the age of five are dangerously malnourished.

“It is the worst I have ever seen. It really leaves you speechless when you see mothers carrying babies who are so malnourished they mightn’t survive.

“At feeding clinics I saw children of eight or nine months who weighed as little as a new born baby.

“These are children at immediate risk of death unless they receive high-nutritional feeding from our programmes.

“Even those kept alive face significant challenges – severe malnutrition at this vital age can irreversibly stunt their growth and mental development.”

Paul said that climate change has played a massive part in contributing to the dry weather in Kenya which means that rain may not fall for weeks or months at a time.

He continued: “The crisis has come about by the failure to two successive rainy seasons. The poorest people in these countries are completely reliant on the rain to feed their crops.

“When it doesn’t rain, crops and animals die. Once that happens, it is only a matter of time before people start dying in large numbers.

“Farming communities are used to short periods each year when food stocks run low immediately before a new harvest, but it has never been this bad before.

“People started running out of food six months ago and the new harvest won’t be for at least another three months.

“I was in the north of Kenya recently. This is one of the worst affected areas of the entire region.

“The situation is just as bad in parts of Somalia, which is now on the verge of famine.

“The last famine the world faced was in 2011 when Somalia fell into famine. Over 250,000 people died that summer and all the warning signs are there that this summer could be worse.

“In Somalia, 6.7 million people need urgent food aid to help them survive the next few months.”

Paul said that the main aim with Trocaire is to get the basics to people including food, water and healthcare.

“We are simply trying to keep people alive. We are delivering food and water to communities who have been left with nothing.

“Our health centres in Somalia are treating around 19,000 people every month for malnutrition and associated illnesses.”

There will be a collection in various churches this weekend and Paul is encouraging people to dig deep.

He concluded: “The Church collection this weekend is massively important. We’re hoping that Irish people will respond in the generous way they always do to these crises.

“People can also donate directly to our east Africa emergency appeal at trocaire.org . All the money donated to this appeal is ring-fenced specifically for emergency aid in east Africa.

“It’s really quite simple: the more money we get, the more lives we can save.”