Situation worsening for Horn of Africa’s children, warns UN agency

“Almost three million children across the Horn of Africa are at risk of death, disease and malnutrition due to a combination of drought, rising food prices and conflict, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today”. UNICEF believes that this is only the beginning for the people across the Horn. Millions of more children and families are susceptible to this epidemic if aid does not start immediately.

While organizations such as UNICEF are trying to help the people across the Horn, security and international funding have been huge obstacles. Relief workers have been attacked and the government has not taken necessary steps to take control. There has also been a 200 percent rise in food prices. Since this area has been experiencing a severe drought crisis, the access to food grains has become nearly impossible. Even with international funding, the increase price of food and fuel make these deliveries extremely difficult.
In Ethiopia there are 75,000 children in need of therapeutic feeding, and numbers of people in desperate need for aid are expected to rise from a population of already 4.6 million. Somalia has also had a severe increase of people who deserve aid, since January there has been a 77 percent rise making a total of 3.2 million people. Regarding the children of Uganda, solely the region of Karamoja there are 7,500 children who are malnourished, where as approximately 700,000 people lack the sufficient amount of food. And as for the people of Kenya, UNICEF has estimated a total of 1.3 million people who are malnourished. More than 95,000 of those people are under the age of five, are pregnant, or breastfeeding women.
“If concerted actions and funding are not forthcoming this crisis could have irreversible effects on the people of the Horn and push any prospect of progress towards the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] far beyond reach of their countries,” Mr. Engebak of UNICEF stated.
I thought this statement about the epidemic of the people across the Horn of Africa is devastating. Not only because millions of people are suffering but because if action is not taken this will inevitably carry on for decades. This is not only the destruction of a population it is the destruction of humanity and their culture. And what is more heart breaking is the fact that aid is scarce and extremely difficult to account for a large mass.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27947&Cr=horn+of+africa&Cr1=drought