East and Southern Africa

As a result of the worsening food crisis in Ethiopia caused by a severe drought related to El Nino, the Government of Ethiopia has announced today that a staggering 10.1 million people will face critical food shortages in 2016, including more than *5.75 million children.

An estimated 400,000 children are now also at risk of developing severe acute malnutrition in 2016, which can lead to stunting, and physical and mental delays in development.

A blog by John Graham, Save the Children Ethiopia Country Director

Evidence of the severity of this year’s drought is the unusual presence of camel carcasses, which are normally an extremely hardy animal well-suited to this environment

We cannot turn our backs on Ethiopia – we must learn from the region’s history books

Save the Children calls for unrestricted immediate humanitarian access, including emergency food aid, to Unity State in South Sudan where an estimated 30,000 people risk famine according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification agency (IPC). More than two million people have been forced to flee their homes since violent conflict erupted between government troops and rebel factions in December 2013, leaving them highly vulnerable to food and nutrition insecurities.

Close to five million children risk going hungry as the result of a worsening food crisis in Ethiopia brought on by a severe drought across normally green and productive regions – making this natural disaster the worst in recent history, warns Save the Children.