More than 27 million hungry children and families are in urgent need of help following months of severe drought, high food prices, and civil unrest.
“I have not cooked anything today,” says Lochoro, a mother of five living in Uganda. “I don’t even know what the kids are going to eat.” Drought has withered crops in the Karamoja region of northern Uganda, leaving most of the population — more than a million people — in need of food aid, according to the World Food Program (WFP).
Desperate to feed her children, Lochoro hopes to earn 400 shillings (about 25 cents) by collecting water from a nearby borehole and selling it to soldiers stationed a few miles away. Or she might collect firewood and carry it to a village four miles from her home.
If Lochoro is lucky, she’ll earn enough to buy eight rats for herself and her children. “I smoke the rats,” she says, “cut them into pieces, and fry the meat — or boil it if I don’t have cooking oil.”
Lochoro has few other options. “I planted sorghum,” she explains, “but the drought came . . . and killed the plants.” Her precarious situation is compounded by unrest in the Karamoja region: gun-wielding cattle rustlers are constantly raiding each other. Thousands of children and families have fled their homes as a result.
Sadly, one way that some in Karamoja are coping with hunger promises to worsen conditions in the long run. In their desperation, hungry families have begun cutting down trees to make and sell charcoal, hoping to earn enough to buy food. Unfortunately, such environmental degradation threatens to further diminish the region’s agricultural productivity.
A similar story is playing out across the Horn of Africa. A combination of natural and man-made disasters is fueling a massive food crisis, putting millions of children and families at risk of starvation.
In Kenya, for example, recent droughts have exacerbated an already difficult situation. Maize, the staple food for most Kenyans, is currently priced 80 to 120 percent above normal, while the projected harvest remains about 28 percent below normal.
“We are making a difference,” says Thomas Solomon, World Vision’s deputy national director in Kenya, “but the needs far exceed available resources, and the situation is only going to get worse this month. Many poor households have already resorted to skipping meals, and there has been a decline in attendance at schools in hard-hit areas.”
Hungry children are counting on the generosity of donors like you to help them survive this food crisis.
Give now to help feed starving children in the Horn of Africa.
Or sponsor a child to help provide lasting food and care.
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