2,500 severely malnourished children admitted to therapeutic feeding centers

More than 2,500 malnourished children in Ethiopia have been admitted to emergency feeding centres in recent weeks, the humanitarian organisation Save the Children USA said on Monday. It said a further 2,000 children were on the "brink" of starvation as Ethiopia faced what has been described as its worst food crisis in two decades. Some 26 therapeutic feeding centres have been established countrywide since March, with a further 21 being set up, many in the south of the country, which has been hard hit by the crisis. Various aid agenices are involved, including Save the Children USA, the Irish charity Goal and Medecins Sans Frontieres. The field office director for Save the Children USA, Adam Keehn, said that many of the victims in the emergency centres were aged between two and five years. "For a two-year-old, southern Ethiopia may be one of the most dangerous places in the world to live right now," said Keehn. "In most cases children admitted to the centres are responding well to treatment. However, we remain very concerned that there are thousands of malnourished children who need immediate care but are not receiving it." "We are trying to reach out to these families every day, but it's difficult, especially in remote rural areas. It's all happening very fast," he said. The government estimates that 12.6 million people in Ethiopia - roughly one fifth of the nation's population - need food aid. According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), between 60,000 and 80,000 are severely malnourished countrywide. Poor targeting of food aid has been blamed for exacerbating the crisis. Meanwhile Belgium and Spain have become the latest countries to pledge funds to help. Belgium has contributed US$1.1 million to a World Food Programme (WFP) operation to give relief food to small-scale farmers and drought-affected pastoralists. Spain also donated $1.1 million to WFP for the Emergency Food Reserve for Ethiopia.