Horn of Africa Appeal

Imagine a world where 5.7 million children - more than the entire population of Ireland - are facing the imminent threat of starvation.

Sadly, this is the reality in the Horn of Africa, which is facing its worst drought in 70 years. 

More than 20 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia do not have enough food to survive, the relentless drought is not expected to end any time soon and the situation is getting worse and worse at an alarming rate.

Your help is needed urgently.

Anna is one of the people caught up in this crisis.

Her pastoral family from Turkana in Kenya once had over 170 livestock. However, drought ravaged the vegetation the animals fed on, starving them.

“Not even one remains. We experienced a lot of pain when we lost them,” Anna told us.

Drought took everything from Anna - from her way of life to the food she relied on to feed her family.

People like Anna are forced to feed off the carcasses of dead animals to survive and, while this may keep them alive in the very short term, the threat of becoming seriously ill is there with every bite. 

“Everyone does the same,” Anna explained, “we don’t have another option."

When we met Anna and her granddaughter, four-year-old Asinyen, all they had eaten for weeks was dried-up wild fruit. Anna was thin and weak, and little Asinyen was weak from the effects of malnutrition. 

“When we had our animals, our life was good," Anna tells us.

"We had no worries. We could sell some animals to buy food, and get milk from them. The vegetation in the hills allowed us to do that. It’s only in recent years that the drought has hit us. Now, we worry if we will live or die, whether our lives will continue or come to an end."

At Concern, our teams have been working relentlessly and have managed to help 2.5 million people in the region, and saved more than 100,000 children, with therapeutic food treatment.

And it's not just children who are coming to our health centres emaciated and in need of treatment, but their parents and families too. Our teams are providing vital cash transfers so parents can buy food, as well as providing drought resistant seeds and training so families who have lost everything can get a new source of income.

However, we need to urgently scale up this work if we are to save lives, and your donation today can help in the fight against a catastrophic wave of death. 

Parts of the region are on the brink of famine and the mortality rate is rising fast. Now with one person dying in the region from hunger every 36 seconds, there really is no time to lose.

This drought is like nothing that has been seen before, its effects are devastating, people are losing hope but with your support we can continue to fight this deadly rise in hunger and malnutrition.

Please donate today.