East Africa food crisis

Conflict and drought in the Horn of Africa and South Sudan is generating a humanitarian crisis of alarming proportions.

The number of people at risk of starvation now stands at more than 19 million.

 A matter of life and death

The Horn of Africa which includes Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia has been hit by months-long drought. Somalia’s hospitals are seeing children with severe dehydration whilst in Kenya the government has declared a national emergency.

Working on the ground

Islamic Relief is already on the ground in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan responding to the impact of the conflict and drought.

We have reached over 200,000 people with life saving aid in recent months including:

  • Provision of water through water trucking
  • Emergency food packs provided to families as well as nutritional support
  • Livestock feed to ensure that more animals do not die
  • Urgent health services, reaching out to remote areas.

Comprehensive relief operation

We are responding to the crisis with emergency food packs distributed to families across the region as well as water being delivered by trucks to areas where the wells have dried up.

Additionally, in Somalia, we are drilling 15 new wells to supply year-round clean water to more than 100,000 people and a £1m recovery programme will plough farmland and supply farming tools, seeds and goats to 3,000 households, as well as bringing 10 underground tanks to capture rainfall back into use.

Last year we delivered a project in Somalia which saw the distribution of emergency food supplies, medicine and the provision and restocking of animals which the population rely on heavily for milk and meat.

More recently, we implemented water trucking initiatives and provided food aid in Ethiopia in response to climatic changes. In Kenya, we implemented a £1 million programme which increased the resilience of households to drought.

Long-term solutions

We are pushing for long-term solutions in Somalia to break the repetitive cycle of drought and floods, delivering a $5 million borehole project to provide 36 sustainable water supplies across the region and installing underground tanks to store rainwater that currently runs wasted into the Red Sea.

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