By IANS,
Nairobi : Over 1.8 million children aged below five seek humanitarian assistance in the Horn of Africa, Xinhua reported UNICEF as stating Thursday.
The Horn of Africa includes Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti countries.
UNICEF’s regional director for eastern and southern Africa, Elhadj As Sy, said the latest drought, in combination with spiralling fuel and food prices, has further deteriorated the nutritional status of children.
“Beyond our emergency response, we have to strengthen children’s and their families’ resilience to help them cope better with the recurrent drought situations in the region,” Elhadj As Sy said in a statement issued in Nairobi.
The current total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in southern and south-eastern Ethiopia stands at 3.2 million, says UNICEF.
In both – Somalia and north-eastern Kenya – some 2.4 million people are facing an acute food and livelihood crisis.
Another 670,000 people are affected in northern Uganda and 120,000 in Djibouti, bringing the number of people in these countries who need help in terms of nutrition, health and water to 8.8 million.
“The effects of climate change are increasingly felt in the region, and it is particularly the children who bear the brunt.”
The crisis led to a sharp increase in the number of malnourished children. The highest percentage can be found in southern Somalia and northern Kenya, where one in four children is acutely malnourished.
This is far above the emergency level of 15 percent as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO). These children face significantly higher risk of dying, and if survived, their physical and social development will be hampered.
The most affected areas of this latest drought are in central and southern Somalia, southern and south-eastern Ethiopia, Djibouti, northern and eastern Kenya as well as parts of Uganda.