Unprecedented food crisis hits Horn of Africa and threatens to rob millions of lives
The Horn of Africa – Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia - is experiencing its worst food crisis in 60 years with more than 13 million people in dire need of food aid, caused by the prolonged drought spell that has been described as the driest since 1951/52 in the affected pastoralist areas. UNICEF estimates nearly two million children are malnourished and nearly 500,000 could die as a result of lack of food if help does not come any sooner.
 Ten-year-old Diriye Mohamed walks past cattle carcasses.Diriye’s family alone has lost 360 goats- their sole source of livelihood since January this year. The World Vision partnership has re-declared a clustered Category III Emergency with a Global Response for the affected countries in the Horn of Africa. The initial Cat III declaration had been issued in March 2011. The number of people severely affected by drought and hunger in the horn of Africa has catapulted from 7 million in March to approximately 13 million to date.
With aforementioned numbers of people in distress and urgent need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Tanzania as a newcomer, it is evident that the situation is dire. Meteorologists forecast that the region may not receive normal rains until early 2012.
Reports show a sharp increase in school closures, the number of children dropping out of school; gruesome Global Acute Malnutrition and Severe Acute Malnutrition rates; children and parents separated and protection challenges on the increase.
Some parts of Uganda, Burundi and the new Republic of South Sudan are showing signs of stress from a combination of drought, increasing fuel and food prices and therefore remain in close monitoring mode.
To appropriately respond to this worsening situation, World Vision projects that a total of US$ 100 million is required for the entire relief response to provide food aid, health and nutrition, water and sanitation, and livelihood protection interventions. In this critical period, World Vision will be focussing on the following relief efforts to tide the victims over this emergency phase:
- Food and non-food relief distribution that includes supplementary foods and medicines to severely malnourished children and victims
- Drugs for affected livestock
- Seeds and root tubers for planting
- Water trucking (to communities and schools), distilling shallow wells to provide clean water
100% of donations received for the Horn of Africa food crisis will go towards the emergency relief response.
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