The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the drought in the Horn of Africa is putting at least 500,000 Kenyans at risk of starvation.
WFP today cautioned that a lack of enough rainfall in parts of the Horn of Africa might expand the number of people in need of food assistance from 14 million to 20 million by 2022.
The United Nations agency also stated that famine is looming in neighboring Somalia, and that malnutrition rates in Ethiopia are presently above emergency levels.
“We know from past experience that acting early to avert a humanitarian catastrophe is vital, yet our ability to launch the response has been limited due to a lack of funding to date,” said Michael Dunford, WFP’s Regional Director for Eastern Africa.
The situation has been exacerbated, according to the WFP, by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, which has resulted in rising food and gasoline prices.
It added that drought-stricken countries throughout the Horn of Africa are expected to be the hardest hit by the conflict’s effects, noting that commodity prices have jumped by 66 percent in Ethiopia and 36 percent in Somalia, both of which rely significantly on wheat from the Black Sea basin.
It said that the disruption in imports was putting food security at risk, and that shipping rates on some routes had doubled since January 2022.
The World Food Programme has cautioned that, due to a serious lack of resources, there are rising fears that the crisis will be impossible to prevent.
It stated that the WFP requires USD 473 million to scale up assistance and save lives in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.
In less than two years, the number of individuals in need in Kenya has increased by more than fourfold.
The fast-rising drought, according to the Short Rains Assessment, has left 3.1 million people acutely food insecure (IPC3 and above), including half a million Kenyans who are experiencing emergency levels of hunger (IPC4).
