Severe food shortages continue to affect millions of hungry people in Kenya while refugees pour in from neighbouring countries and United Nations agencies brace the population for expected floods, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.
Food insecurity, largely due to prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa region, has led to the World Food Programme (WFP) putting some 3.8 million people in Kenya on emergency food aid assistance, and another 1.5 million children on a school feeding programme.
The availability of food over the next three months is expected to remain uncertain despite the forecast of heavy rains related to El Niño weather patterns, according to OCHA.
Between 28 September and 1 October, World Health Organization (WHO) conducted health sector emergency preparedness training in the eastern Garissa district in anticipation of flooding resulting from the forecasted rain. Some neighbouring districts have already developed similar emergency preparedness plans.
In addition, OCHA is supporting coordination and fund-raising efforts to address a reported re-emergence of a cholera outbreak in Turkana district in the north, which has claimed six lives and put 73 people in hospital.
With over 80,000 refugees streaming across borders into Kenya since the beginning of the year, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that the total number of refugees and asylum-seekers in Kenya stands at over 380,000.
According to UNHCR, some 288,000 – the majority from Somalia – are sheltering three makeshift camps in the Dadaab area of Garissa district, almost 50,000 have settled in camps in Kakuma in the north and another 42,000 in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
