The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned yesterday that at least 22 million people will face hunger by September in the Horn of Africa, where the risk of food insecurity is rising due to record levels of drought.
The program said in a statement that a fourth consecutive season of rainfall since the end of 2020 exacerbated the worst drought in 40 years and resulted in millions of livestock deaths, crop destruction and land flooding in Kenya. Somalia and Ethiopia are in famine, leaving more than a million people to flee their homes in search of water and food.
“There seems to be no end in sight to this drought crisis, so we must get the resources we need to save lives and prevent people from sliding into catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement. calling on the world to take immediate action to protect the communities most vulnerable to the risk of spreading famine in the Horn of Africa.
The World Food Program has stressed that it will urgently need $418 million over the next six months to meet these growing needs.
