Thousands of children are on the brink of starvation in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya due to extreme food shortages and high food prices.

A deadly combination of crop failures, year-on-year droughts, the effects of climate change, conflicts and political turmoil is affecting millions of people across East Africa.

Up to 20 million people are facing severe hunger, leaving them in desperate need of emergency food aid. Child malnutrition rates are rising.

East Africa's recent erratic weather patterns indicate a changing climate. While drought reoccurs in many parts of East Africa, the prolonged droughts put vulnerable communities at the knife edge of climate change.

Save the Children is there

Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s recent rains have failed. With food price increases, 6.4 million Ethiopians need emergency food assistance. Half of them are children. Hungry children are vulnerable to contracting acute watery diarrhoea, cases of which are being reported across the country.

We're delivering aid through food distributions, emergency nutrition programmes, and emergency health assistance.

Kenya

Poor rains, declines in food stocks and rising food prices have left 10 million people without enough to eat. We estimate that there are up to 100,000 more malnourished children in the country.

A quarter of the population live on less than $1 a day. The poorest families are struggling to cope. In Mandera, where we operate a programme for treating malnourished children, one in every three children are acutely malnourished.

In the north-east of Kenya we're working with rural communities, where people are vulnerable to droughts and food insecurity. We're also still working in the refugee camps of Dadaab to provide relief to those living in the desperately overcrowded conditions.

Somalia

Somalia is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in nearly 20 years. Internal conflict has ravaged Somalia for 18 years, causing people to flee their homes across the country and sometimes over neighbouring borders. On top of this, endemic poverty, recurrent droughts and flooding have ruined the livelihoods of those left behind.

Now, after five years of failed rains, crops have failed and livestock are dying. The United Nations estimate that 3.76 million Somalis, over half the population, are currently in need of life-saving food assistance. One in five Somali children are now malnourished.

We've been there since 1992. And we're increasing our work there to reach the growing numbers of people affected by the crisis.