UNICEF: Food insecurity as drought worsens in Kenya

ISIOLO, Kenya, 16 October 2009 Underneath the blazing sun, pastoralists Ekwam Joseph, 20, and his younger brother, Ekai Francis, 11, herd their cattle through a land that is covered with anything but green pasture.

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I had 161 cows and bulls, 155 of them have died, said Ekwam. With only six remaining, I dont know what to do to die or to move somewhere else.

With the failure of four consecutive rainy seasons, the impact of drought, hunger and disease is not only felt in Kenya, but throughout the Horn of Africa. Across the region, some 24 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia and parts of Uganda are now in need of humanitarian aid, up from 20 million earlier this year. Among them nearly five million are children under five years of age.

In times of crises like this, numbers and figures will never tell us the true impact these crises have on the most vulnerable children and families, said UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Elhadj As Sy. We are talking about a region where up to 50 per cent of children under five are chronically malnourished and one in eight children die before reaching their fifth birthday. If we dont manage to reduce the severe vulnerability of children and their families we will see situations like this occurring over and over again.

To read the full story, visit http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/k...