[pronut-hiv] HORN OF AFRICA: Children hardest hit by drought, says UNICEF

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HORN OF AFRICA: Children hardest hit by drought, says UNICEF
NAIROBI, 25 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - The severe drought affecting the Horn of
Africa has taken a heavy toll on an estimated 1.2 million children under
the age of five, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on
Wednesday.

The children were especially vulnerable to threats posed by
malnutrition and disease.

"This drought ominously compounds an already dismal humanitarian
situation," said Per Engebak, UNICEF regional director for eastern and
southern Africa. 

"Many factors have chipped away at the people's survival capacities,
and this drought is further contributing to the erosion of those
capacities as a growing number of people are becoming destitute," he
added.

More than 56,000 children under the age of five were facing
malnutrition in the Somali and Oromiya regions of southern Ethiopia, and
the number was expected to rise sharply as the drought worsens.

In Kenya, between 40,000 and 60,000 children and women in the 27
affected districts are malnourished. According to UNICEF, as many as
three out of 10 children in the drought-affected areas of Somalia will
be malnourished.

Children weakened by malnutrition are at gravely higher risk of any
infection, and measles is one of the most virulent illnesses, spreading
quickly among those who are not immunised, UNICEF said.

In southern Somalia, years of inter-clan fighting and lack of basic
social amenities meant that about 90 percent of children under the age
of five were not immunised against measles. The scenario was similar in
the affected regions in Ethiopia.

Schools in parts of northern Kenya were reporting increased absenteeism
and drop-out rates, as children joined in the search and struggle for
pasture for weakened livestock and food and water for themselves and
their families, UNICEF said.

The agency, which launched an urgent appeal for US $14.7 million to
help an estimated six million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia,
said the current drought was the worst to hit the region in a decade.

Working with the three governments, UNICEF said it planned to expand
therapeutic and supplementary feeding programmes, step up vaccination
and vitamin A campaigns and provide water and sanitation services.

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned of a possible
humanitarian disaster in Kenya's drought-stricken northern and eastern
areas unless donations for emergency food aid are received immediately.


It said food stocks for its Kenyan operation would run out in weeks.

"Since our last appeal in December, we have received very little
against the growing needs," said James Morris, WFP executive director.
"We don't have enough for the 1.2 million people we are currently
feeding, let alone the expected increase to 2.5 million or more in
February." 

Two successive years of failed rains have precipitated the crisis in
the ecologically fragile area that converges in northern Kenya, southern
Ethiopia and central and southern Somalia. 

Agricultural productivity in the region was already in decline due to
local insecurity and conflicts.

Pastoral communities have been hit particularly hard by the drought,
which has led to the death of large numbers of livestock and left
herders with nothing to exchange for survival.

"We have warned and appealed for months for contributions to save lives
in drought-hit Kenya," said Tesema Negash, WFP Kenya country director. 

"We are in the midst of an emergency. If we receive no new donations
now, it is extremely likely that Kenya will be hit by a humanitarian
disaster in the months to come," he added. 

WFP requires some 350,000 tonnes of food valued at $238 million to feed
the anticipated 2.5 million people in Kenya this year, but the agency is
already short of $43 million to feed 1.2 million.