Kenya’s government on Friday ordered the immediate purchase of ”all available maize in the country” in an emergency bid to stave off deaths from a searing drought that has killed dozens and placed millions at risk of famine across East Africa.
The Cabinet described the situation as ”very severe”, endorsed President Mwai Kibaki’s New Year’s Day declaration of the drought as a ”national disaster” and said it now considers halting deaths from malnutrition and starvation to be its top priority.
The Cabinet ”reviewed the food situation in the country and termed as the country’s current number-one priority the provision of food for Kenyans who must all be catered for during this famine period”, Kibaki’s office said in a statement.
It ordered additional funds provided for relief efforts for the 2,5-million Kenyans expected to need aid to survive by the end of next month and formed a task force to examine Kenya’s long-term food-security requirements urgently.
”The Cabinet also directed that all available maize in the country be purchased to meet the challenges ahead in the coming months,” it said.
Red Cross and hospital officials say at least 40 people, mainly children, have died from malnurition and related illnesses since December in Kenya’s north-east, which along with neighbouring southern Somalia and southeast Ethiopia are the regions worst affected by two years of chronic drought.
In addition to the human toll, hundreds, if not thousands, of cows, goats and camels have perished, severely hurting the area’s livestock-dependent pastoralist population.
Shortly before the Kenyan statement was released, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that 11-million people in Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa.
In a ”special alert” issued at its Rome headquarters, the FAO urged international donors to respond immediately to appeals for emergency assistance throughout the Horn of Africa.
It said food shortages are ”particularly grave” in anarchic Somalia and said the situation is ”very serious” in pastoral areas of Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. — Sapa-AFP