A series of severe droughts and conflicts have left more than 26 million people across East Africa at risk of hunger and in urgent need of help.

CARE is already responding to the risk of famine.

South Sudan is one of the most food insecure countries in the world, with half the country – more than 5 million people – facing life-threatening hunger. The situation is expected to further deteriorate throughout the year. Families are barely surviving by eating leaves and roots and children are suffering from excruciating hunger.

In Somalia, more than 380,000 children are acutely malnourished – 79 per cent of them babies younger than five. Large scale drought killed livestock, dried up water supplies, and forced more than 2 million people to leave their homes in search of food and water. Now, the rainy season has brought devastating floods, leading to even greater loss of life; destroying homes, crop fields and businesses. Many roads in the affected areas have been cut off, disrupting the delivery of supplies.

Kenya and Ethiopia are also affected by this region-wide hunger crisis.

We cannot let this continue.

Families desperately need your help to feed their children before it’s too late. Please donate to our East Africa Hunger Appeal now. 

Women and girls are particularly at risk. When families resort to skipping meals and eating once a day, women and girls eat least and last. Women and girls are also responsible for collecting water, but as drought conditions worsen they have to walk up to 50 kilometres per day in search for water.

We need your help. Right now, CARE’s teams are on the ground providing lifesaving support in some of the worst affected areas:

• We are providing critical medicines and healthcare to children suffering from malnutrition, diarrhoea and cholera
• We are providing food aid and cash vouchers to parents so they can feed their children
• We are distributing seeds so families can replant devastated crops
• We are making sure families have clean drinking water

We are already providing emergency help to 708,000 people in South Sudan, 28,589 people in Kenya, 655,000 people in Somalia and more than 471,000 people in Ethiopia.

But we must do more to prevent famine.

Famine is declared when certain measures of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are met. These are:

• at least 20% of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope;
• acute malnutrition rates exceed 30%;
• and the death rate exceeds two persons per day per 10,000 persons.

Please donate to help hungry families in South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia before it’s too late.