UN humanitarian partners have appealed for more than 4.4 billion U.S. dollars to provide life-saving assistance and protection to about 29.1 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia in 2022.
The UN relief agency said this on Wednesday,
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said that between 12 million and 14 million people were waking each day to face high levels of acute food insecurity and severe water shortages across the three countries.
The office said this was due to drought in the first quarter of 2022.
“We urgently call on donors to fund these appeals so that we can immediately respond to the life-threatening needs across the Horn of Africa,’’ UNOCHA said in its latest update on the drought situation in the region.
The UN relief agency, however, called on donors to fund the vibrant network of local, community-based and women-led organisations, including refugee-led organizations.
Such organizations, it noted, carried out incredible work in drought-affected communities every day.
It welcomed the emergency declarations issued by the governments of Kenya and Somalia.
It also called on governments across the region to prioritise the drought emergency by allocating the necessary funds to provide timely comprehensive support to their communities.
According to the UNOCHA, about 5.5 million children were expected to be acutely malnourished in these three countries in 2022, including more than 1.6 million severely acutely malnourished.
It said the migration of livestock herds had reduced milk availability, negatively affecting nutrition, especially for children under five years old.
It said the October and December 2020, March to May 2021 and October to December 2021 seasons were all marred by below-average rainfall.
It said that the situation had left large swathes of Somalia, southern and south-eastern Ethiopia, northern and eastern Kenya to face exceptional drought.(Xinhua/NAN)
