The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) says that 13 million people across the Horn of Africa are facing severe famine due to drought. WFP is calling for urgent assistance to avoid a repeat of the famine a decade ago that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Three failed monsoons have created the driest conditions since the 1980s in the region. The forecast for below-average rainfall will also add to the misery in the months ahead.
"Crops are damaged, livestock are dying, and hunger is increasing as repeated droughts affect the Horn of Africa," said Michael Dunford, Regional Director at WFP's Regional Bureau for East Africa.
These conditions have decimated livestock and forced thousands of people in the area, many of whom are farmers, into refugee camps. "We have never experienced this before, we are only seeing dust storms now. We are afraid they will cover us all and become our graves," Mohamed Adem from the Somalia region of Ethiopia said in the WFP video.
Video footage taken from the air shows vast dusty undergrowth covered in cattle carcasses. In the village of Kebele, you can see many people tying a rope to the body of a skinny cow to lift it up.
"Despite being out of control, there is a severe drought in areas of Somalia and parts of Oromia and the southern states," said Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu. "So WFP's warning is quite spot on."
The drought has also spread to parts of Kenya, Somalia and Eritrea. Between 2010 and 2012, about 250,000 people died of hunger in Somalia, half of them children.
The United Nations children's agency, Mohamed Fall, warned of the same directive that many children would die or suffer lifelong cognitive or physical damage without prompt action to avoid starvation. "We need to act now to prevent a catastrophe," he said by telephone from Nairobi.
According to him, 5.5 million children in four countries are currently at risk of acute malnutrition. The WFP unveiled its regional response plan for the Horn of Africa this week and called for $327 million. Meanwhile, UNICEF is seeking funding of around US$123 million.