Wednesday October 9, 2024
A child is seen in Kidemu sub-location in Kilifi County, Kenya, March 23, 2022. (Xinhua/Dong Jianghui)
At least a million people in Kenya are struggling with food insecurity and in need of humanitarian assistance, the country's National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said Monday.
NDMA noted in a report released in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi that the affected people are in the country's 23 out of the 47 counties, which are classified as arid and semi-arid.
The authority observed that the number of children aged six to 59 months requiring treatment for acute malnutrition dropped to 760,488 in August from 847,932 in February.
Meanwhile, the total of pregnant and breastfeeding women requiring treatment for acute malnutrition reached 112,401.
NDMA revealed that households sold their harvests to cover other costs, often at the expense of maintaining healthy eating and chronic challenges associated with stunting.
In July, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) noted in a report that the number of food-insecure people in the Horn of Africa stood at 66.7 million. Among them, 39.1 million were from six of the eight IGAD member states, namely Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda.