Over eight million people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa due to severe drought, crop failure and loss of livestock. Of those affected, 1.6 million are children under the age of five.
The causes are complex: poverty, gender inequality, lack of access to education and poor child care practices, compounded by drought or flooding, conflict and HIV/AIDS. What is clear is that these food shortages are a potential disaster for children. In this emergency the pastoral community, particularly the children and women, have been hit the hardest. The consequences of the drought can be deadly: people become malnourished, they lose their animals and their livelihoods and become more susceptible to communicable diseases such as measles, meningitis, diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections and polio. Experience from previous droughts has shown that measles, when combined with malnutrition is the biggest threat for children, sometimes accounting for half of all deaths of children under the age of five.
Women and children, often left behind when men travel in search of resources, can become vulnerable to violent attacks and rape as they search further afield for water sources. As tensions rise, the risk of sexual violence, exploitation and abuse also escalates further.
HIV/AIDS is an additional threat. Reports have suggested that due to livelihood insecurity vulnerable groups, including children, are becoming involved in harmful practices such as prostitution and transactional sex in order to survive. This, alongside the migration of populations, will result in an increase in HIV infections. People currently living with HIV/AIDS will also have less access to adequate healthcare and become more vulnerable to opportunistic infections.
UNICEF is calling for $80 million to reach the people at risk in Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. These funds are urgently needed to enable us to respond to this current crisis by providing clean safe water, immunising children against disease, supporting feeding centres and educating and empowering communities.
Help us to reach children affected by the food crises in East Africa with life-saving interventions before it is too late.
