Children and families in the Horn of Africa are experiencing severe shortages of food and water. The situation has been rapidly deteriorating due to various factors including rising food prices and drought, which has been made dramatically worse by climate change.

Weak and failed rains across Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia and parts of Uganda have caused crops to fail and cattle to die. Approximately 24 million people in the region, including 5 million children, now face chronic food insecurity and UNICEF estimates that 500,000 children under five are at risk of life-threatening severe acute malnutrition this year.

In some countries the rainfall has been as low as half the normal amount and in other countries such as Kenya failed rains have resulted in severe water shortages and the widespread deaths of cattle due to dehydration.

During the upcoming rainy season the El Niño weather pattern is likely to bring flooding to parts of this region, which may cause additional crop failures and lead to an increase in waterborne diseases and even more cases of acute malnutrition. During recent months, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia have already registered more than 65,000 cases of cholera or acute watery diarrhoea, exceeding figures of the previous two years. El Niño flooding may also disrupt hard-pressed education services in a region where already millions of children are out of school due to chronic emergency situations.

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