Appeal launched to help millions left starving after East Africa's worst drought in decades
•Massive campaign launched as full horror emerges
•Scroll down for details on how to donate
By David Williams
Last updated at 12:58 PM on 9th July 2011
Comments (3) Add to My Stories Share .
The British public yesterday donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to ease the plight of more than 10million drought-hit and desperate people in the Horn of Africa.
Aid agencies say the worst drought to hit the region in 60 years has created a ‘humanitarian emergency’ and warn of a ‘catastrophe’ unless there is a massive injection of international aid.
As tens of thousands of starving families walked for days towards refugee camps in Kenya to flee what is described as a ‘living hell’ in their homelands, the Disasters Emergency Committe, an umbrella organisation for British agencies, launched a major appeal for funds.
A mother and child wait at a processing centre in Kenya with hundreds of other starving men, women and children
Desperate for help: Starving children inside a ruined building in Mogadishu, wait to be moved to a camp for displaced people from southern Somalia
Malnourished: Another child wit a grim future lies on a wooden table at Banadir hospital, in Mogadishu
Somalis refugees sit outside their makeshift home in Mogadishu, Somalia
Committee chief executive Brendan Gormley said: ‘Slowly but surely, these people have seen their lives fall apart – crops, livestock and now their homes have been taken by drought.
‘They’ve been left with no alternative but to seek shelter and life-saving help elsewhere. We have a duty to help quickly before the situation spirals out of control.’
An estimated 1,500 people a day are arriving at the three dust-caked, desolate camps at Dadaab, northern Kenya, already thought to be the world’s biggest with a population of 382,000. Thousands more are waiting at nearby reception processing centres.
Many are tiny, wasted children, some close to death when they arrive at the camp in the arms of parents, themselves frail and weak from days without food and only little water.
In need: A Somali child from holds his brother as they wait to join the internally displaced persons camps in Mogadishu
Women and children: Some mothers are letting the weakest children die, while they try to save the stronger ones
Thousands of malnourished families are walking for days in search of food in a triangle of hunger where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet. Hundreds have died, and haunting images of starving children are becoming commonplace.
The UK has pledged £38million in food aid to Ethiopia while the British public donated more than £1million – including £560,000 to Save the Children, £277,000 to Oxfam and £150,000 to the Red Cross – before the DEC appeal.
Hawo Ibrahim said she and her seven children trekked 15 days from a town in southern Somalia before reaching a refugee camp.
Queuing: At the camp, Somalian women and children line up to receive food
Gruel is shared out to the starving in Mogadishu by representatives of the Jumbo charitable organisation
‘We have seen misery and hunger on our way,’ said Ibrahim, 32, who said her husband ‘went mad’ after the family lost its livestock to drought.
Save the Children said a quarter of children in the worst-hit parts of Kenya were dangerously malnourished. Caught between violence and hunger, a UN official warned Somali refugees were suffering ‘a human tragedy of unimaginable proportions’.
‘We ran away from hunger,’ said Halimo Farah, a mother of three who fled Somalia.
Many Somallian refugees who have fled south end up in the Dadaab complex, which is the largest in the world. It is formed of three camps, including Dagahaley where this woman is seen crying through a fence
A naked boy looks forlornly in Dagahaley camp, in north-eastern Kenya while members of his family make use of the little water they are given
International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said: ‘Charities and organisations need this additional support to get emergency supplies to those in desperate need.’
nDEC members include ActionAid, Age UK, British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Plan UK, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.
To donate, phone 0370 60 60 900, text ‘CRISIS’ to 70000 to donate £5, or post a donation to PO Box 999, London EC3A 3AA.
dailymail.co.uk |
