Three United Nations agencies on Tuesday appealed for $32-million in donations to combat a malnutrition crisis at two major Kenyan refugee camps.
”The malnutrition crisis that we are witnessing in the refugee camps in Kenya is the cumulative effect of years of recurrent budgetary shortfalls,” Eddie Gedalof from the Kenya office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement.
The statement, co-signed by the World Food Programme and the UN Children’s Fund, said the money would help save lives in the Kakuma and Dadaab camps, home to at least 237 000 refugees, mostly Somalis and Sudanese.
Kenya borders Somalia — where unabated violence is continuing to displace civilians — and southern Sudan, where an agreement to end a two-decade civil war has been slow to yield peace dividends.
The malnutrition rate among children under five stands at 22,2% in Dadaab and 15,9% in Kakuma, the UN statement said.
Rates above 15% are considered an emergency.
A survey carried out a year ago in Dadaab found anaemia rates to be 78% among children under five and 72,7% among women. — Sapa-AFP