World Food Programme (WFP) chief James Morris warned of large scale deaths in Kenya if donors delay the support in the delivery of food to some 3.5 million people facing a threat of starvation. At least 40 people, or perhaps more, have died in northern Kenya and cattle, camels and donkeys are also dying at an alarming rate amid an acute food shortages which are threatening at least 11 million people across the Horn of Africa.
"WFP and its partners are quickly registering the new arrivals to ensure they recieve food, but we fear that any break in food supplies to the most vulnerable people will lead to suffering and deaths on large scale," Morris said Sunday, who has just completed a tour of northern Kenya.
The UN food agency said it had enough maize and rice to cover cereal requirements for the months of March and April, half the quantity of beans needed this month and had run out of the less important vegetable oil.
"These people now have nothing, they will have to be provided with food" in order to live, Morris told a press conference in the Kenyan capital after touring El Wak, a dusty outpost about 820 kilometers (510 miles) northeast of Nairobi on the Somali border, that has become the epicentre of suffering across the east Africa and Horn of Africa region.
Of the 225 million dollars needed until February 2007 to buy some 396,525 metric tonnes of food each month, the agency had received 36 million dollars, leaving a shortfall of about 189 million dollars, the agency said.
"The world has not appreciated in the last 60 days how serious this situation is... we are now in a crisis. We are in a life-saving mode," Morris said.
The WFP chief warned that the situation was equally serious in Somalia where some 1.7 million people are facing food shortage, but delivery of supplies has been complicated by violence on the land and piracy in the Indian Ocean.
"The world needs to know that ths issue in Kenya and Somalia are very serious...The people whose livelihood depend on mother nature are very vulnerable," he said. Kenya is home to 32 million people while Somalia has population of about 10 million.
In addition to Kenya, the UN estimates that up to 11 million people in three other east African countries -- Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti -- are on the brink of starvation.
