Tens of thousands of people are dying from diseases linked to malnutrition in drought-hit East Africa, the United Nations said Friday as it appealed for hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.
Charities warned that brief but heavy rains that have recently inundated some afflicted areas were a "mixed blessing" as they had isolated and displaced thousands of at-risk people, as the UN urged immediate donor action.
"In the Horn of Africa now, there are tens of thousands dying from the extreme vulnerability they are living in," UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said, launching a 426-million-dollar (348-million-euro) appeal for this year.
More than 15 million people across the Horn are facing food crises, eight million of whom are in need of emergency assistance in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Somalia, according to the United Nations.
"Malnourished children are now dying in very high numbers," Egeland said. "They have become so weak that they die from preventable disease.
"People are not dying in large numbers because of hunger itself, but of associated diseases and malnutrition," he added.
Exact figures of the numbers of deaths were not available due to the inaccessibility of many of the worst-hit areas, but at least 50 people are known to have died of drought-related causes in northern Kenya since December.
Other deaths have been reported in southern Ethiopia and south-eastern and central Somalia but relief organisations have been unable to determine the numbers.
In addition to the human toll, hundreds of thousands of livestock and wildlife have perished due to the drought further damaging prospects for many.
Friday's appeal includes emergency relief and funding for 100 long-term support projects, the lion's share in Somalia where the drought situation has been compounded by lawlessness.
"All together, we need a massive amount of investment from the international donor community and from the region itself to avert a massive loss of lives," Egeland told a news conference in the Kenyan capital.
In addition to emergency aid to stave off possible famine, donors need to fund relatively cheaper programs to ensure food security in perennially drought-stricken areas populated mainly by livestock-dependent nomads, he said.
"We are trying now to move from saving lives in daily food distribution to doing agricultural work: livestock, water and irrigation recovery projects," Egeland said.
Earlier, the British charity Oxfam International and the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) said recent rains in drought-hit parts of Kenya could actually worsen the already fragile food situation.
Floods from the rains have displaced more than 3,000 people in parts of northern Kenya and washed away access roads that relief groups depend on to distribute much-needed humanitarian supplies, they said.
"With the coming of the rains in certain areas some people will begin to return to land where they usually graze their livestock - but this does not mean the end of the crisis," Oxfam said in a statement.
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