Two million in need of food aid - WFP

Up to two million Kenyans in arid and semi-arid regions of the country will need food assistance until August despite a general improvement in weather conditions, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. "The debilitating impact of a prolonged dry spell, compounded by chronic poverty, means that in many regions thousands of families are too poor to have enough to eat," Tesema Negash, WFP country director for Kenya, said. In others parts of the country – such as eastern Kenya – the rains had failed once again, worsening food shortages, he added. WFP said it would, between May and August, provide 83,000 mt of food aid to 1.6 million drought-affected people, and an additional 420,000 mt to school children. The agency said it was, however, still short of 52,000 mt of food, worth US $28 million. The shortfall represents almost 63 percent of the food required, WFP said. The current food crisis is particularly acute in Kajiado district, south of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where the cumulative effect of the total failure of the 2004 rains and two poor rainy seasons in 2003, has created a life-threatening situation. WFP said 30 percent of children seeking medical assistance in Kajiado were underweight. Kajiado has recently been the scene of land clashes, causing displacement and exacerbating food insecurity in the area. The Kenya Red Cross Society on Monday told IRIN it had provided non-food items to some 400 people in the Masulu Division of Kajiado District whose homes had been torched in the clashes. WFP said the rain failure had severely affected production, particularly of maize, the country’s staple food. Maize prices in key markets around the country were prohibitively high at 20 to 70 percent above normal, the agency said. The UN Children's Fund on Friday appealed for nearly $3 million to ease the impact of drought on children in Kenya, saying that 30,000 malnourished youngsters required urgent nutritional support. The funds would also be used to provide 450,000 children with measles and polio vaccinations, and to help an estimated 200,000 people who lacked safe drinking water.