Photo Gallery A Half-Million Children Face Starvation in East Africa
A child in the Kenyan refugee camp of Dadaab, where many Somalis have fled since drought and famine have devastated parts of the country. Across the Horn of Africa, an estimated 2.23 million children are suffering from severe malnutrition.
The United Nations has warned that without swift aid, up to half a million children could starve to death. Here, a child lies in a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Dadaab.
Some 11 million people have been affected by the drought in the Horn of Africa, thought to be the worst the region has seen in 60 years. Somalia is especially vulnerable, as years of civil war have left the country overrun by Islamist militias and its infrastructure in ruins.
Relief workers in Somalia are confronted with a logistical nightmare: It's nearly impossible to deliver aid outside of the capital. Thousands of Somalis are therefore fleeing to Mogadishu in search of aid.
A mother with her malnourished child in Mogadishu's Banadir Hospital.
Displaced women wait to receive food rations in Mogadishu.
Many Somalis are also seeking help in neighboring Ethiopia or Kenya. Here, a young girl is pictured in Kenya's Dadaab camp. The camp is already overfilled and more refugees arrive each day.
Dadaab was designed to house 90,000 people. Some 380,000 are thought to be living there now.
"I have visited many refugee camps in the world. I have never seen people coming in such a desperate situation," UN Refugee Agency chief Antonio Guterres said of the situation in Dadaab. This two-month-old child and his mother are receiving treatment from Doctors Without Borders in Dadaab.
