With East Africa facing its worst drought
in 60 years, affecting more than 11 million people, the United Nations
has declared a famine in the region for the first time in a generation.
Overcrowded refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia are receiving some 3,000
new refugees every day, as families flee from famine-stricken and
war-torn areas. The meager food and water that used to support millions
in the Horn of Africa is disappearing rapidly, and families strong
enough to flee for survival must travel up to a hundred miles, often on
foot, hoping to make it to a refugee center, seeking food and aid. Many
do not survive the trip. Officials warn that 800,000 children could die
of malnutrition across the East African nations of Somalia, Ethiopia,
Eritrea, and Kenya. Aid agencies are frustrated by many crippling
situations: the slow response of Western governments, local governments
and terrorist groups blocking access, terrorist and bandit attacks, and
anti-terrorism laws that restrict who the aid groups can deal with --
not to mention the massive scale of the current crisis. Below are a few
images from the past several weeks in East Africa. One immediate way to
help is to text "FOOD" to UNICEF (864233) to donate $10, enough to feed a child for 10 days, more ways to help listed here. [38 photos]
Mihag Gedi Farah, a malnourished seven-month-old child weighing only
7.5 pound (3.4kg), is held by his mother in a field hospital of the
International Rescue Committee, IRC, in the town of Dadaab, Kenya, on
July 26, 2011. The U.N. will airlift emergency rations this week to
parts of drought-ravaged Somalia that militants banned it from more than
two years ago, in a crisis intervention to keep hungry refugees from
dying along what an official calls the "roads of death." Tens of
thousands already have trekked to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, hoping
to get aid in refugee camps. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
Women and girls, caught in a small sandstorm, fetch water in Wajir in
this photo released on July 21, 2011. A wide swath of east Africa,
including Kenya and Ethiopia, has been hit by years of severe drought
and the United Nations says two regions of southern Somalia are
suffering the worst famine for 20 years. (Reuters/Jakob Dall/Danish Red Cross) # 
A Somali man accesses a water point at the Dadaab refugee camp on July
4, 2011. With a population of 370,000, Dadaab is the world's largest
refugee camp even though it was built for just 90,000. According to
Doctors Without Borders, the number of people seeking refugee keeps
swelling and Dadaab will house 450,000 refugees by the end of the year,
or twice the population of Geneva. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images) #
Somali refugees who recently crossed the border from Somalia into
southern Ethiopia cluster between two food tents as they wait to be
called to collect food aid at the Kobe refugee camp, on July 19, 2011.
Ethiopian authorities and non-governmental organizations have
accommodated almost 25,000 refugees at the camp since it was set up less
then three weeks ago. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images) #
A woman waits for food rations at a feeding center in Lolkuta, near
Wajir, on July 21, 2011. The UN's World Programme Programme was
preparing on July 26, 2011 to airlift food aid into the Somali capital
Mogadishu, but efforts were hampered by last minute paperwork in Kenya.
An estimated 3.7 million people in Somalia -- around a third of the
population -- are on the brink of starvation and millions more in
Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have been struck by the worst
drought in the region in 60 years. (Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images) #
An aid worker using an iPad photographs the rotting carcass of a cow in
Wajir, near the Kenya-Somalia border, on July 23, 2011. Since drought
gripped the Horn of Africa, and especially since famine was declared in
parts of Somalia, the international aid industry has swept in and out of
refugee camps and remote hamlets in branded planes and snaking lines of
white 4x4s. This humanitarian, diplomatic and media circus is necessary
every time people go hungry in Africa, analysts say, because
governments - both African and foreign - rarely respond early enough to
looming catastrophes. Combine that with an often simplistic explanation
of the causes of famine, and a growing band of aid critics say parts of
Africa are doomed to a never-ending cycle of ignored early warnings,
media appeals and emergency U.N. feeding - rather than a transition to
lasting self-sufficiency. Picture taken July 23, 2011. (Reuters/Barry Malone) #
An aerial view of the Dadaab Refugee camp in eastern Kenya, where the
influx of Somali's displaced by a ravaging famine remains high, on July
23, 2011. The European Union Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva has
vowed to do all that is possible to help 12 million people struggling
from extreme drought across the Horn of Africa, boosting aid by 27.8
million euros ($40 million). The funds come on top of almost 70 million
euros ($100 million) the bloc has already contributed as assistance in
the worst regional drought in decades, affecting parts of Ethiopia,
Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Uganda. (Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images) #
Nado Mahad Abdilli builds a makeshift shelter for her family in Ifo 2,
an area earmarked for refugee camp expansion, but yet to be approved by
the Kenyan government, outside Dadaab, Kenya, on Monday, July 11, 2011.
U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres said Sunday that drought-ridden
Somalia is the "worst humanitarian disaster" in the world, after meeting
with refugees who endured unspeakable hardship to reach the world's
largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) #
Somali men carry a severely malnourished child, under the instruction
of a African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) peacekeeper, from a camp
for internally displaced people to the peacekeeping operations
headquarters where the child was admitted for emergency medical
treatment, in Mogadishu, on July 15, 2011. (Reuters/Stuart Price/AU-UN IST PHOTO) #
Sheik Yare Abdi washes the body of four-year-old Aden Ibrahim in
preparation for burial in accordance with Somali tradition, inside the
makeshift shelter where Aden's family lives among other newly-arrived
Somali refugees on the outskirts of Ifo II Camp, outside Dadaab, Kenya,
on Tuesday, July 12, 2011. Doctors were unable to save Aden, who died of
diarrhea-related dehydration after four days of inpatient care. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) #
Abdirisak Mursal, 3, a malnourished child from southern Somalia, gets
treatment in Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, on July 16, 2011. Thousands
of people have arrived in Mogadishu over the past two weeks seeking
assistance and the number is increasing by the day, due to lack of water
and food. The worst drought in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe
food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia
experiencing pre-famine conditions, the United Nations has said. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh) #
A boy from the family of Rage Mohamed is caught in wind-blown dust as
his family builds a makeshift shelter around a thorny acacia tree, on
the outskirts of Dagahaley Camp, outside Dadaab, Kenya, on July 10,
2011. It took the 15-person family five days to make the journey from
their drought-stricken home in Somalia. They spent two nights sleeping
in the open air under the tree prior to receiving tarps on Sunday. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) #
Hassan Ali prays by the roadside as he walks from the Somali-Kenyan
border, just 2km away, on July 23, 2011. Hassan left his home in Dinsour
fifteen days ago, and is walking to join his family in the Kenyan
refugee complex at Dadaab, having fled the drought that has ravaged the
Horn of Africa. (Phil Moore/AFP/Getty Images) #
A newly arrived Somali refugee child awaits medical examinations at the
Dadaab refugee camp, on July 23, 2011. Aid agencies are unable to reach
more than two million Somalis facing starvation in the famine-struck
Horn of Africa country where Islamist insurgents control much of the
worst-hit areas, the U.N.'s food agency said on Saturday. (Reuters/Kabir Dhanji) #
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