Kenya seeks help for food disaster
President Mwai Kibaki
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has appealed for international food aid to help feed an estimated 3.3 million people facing severe food shortages.
"Data from inter-agency food security assessments... indicate that about 3.3 million Kenyans, including 1.5 million children, are already experiencing severe food shortage and require emergency assistance," Mr Kibaki told a meeting at which representatives of international donors were also present.
He said Kenya needed 156,000 tonnes of food, estimated to cost $US76 million ($A105 million), to contain the situation in the next six months. A further $US32 million was required for non-food aid.
A joint report by the United Nations World Food Program, the Kenyan Government and aid agencies suggests that a million more people could need aid if the rains of October to December fail.
The report said the hardest hit among Kenya's 30 million people - more than half of whom live on less than a dollar a day - were in rural areas of the Coast, Eastern, North Eastern and Rift Valley provinces and would need food aid until January next year.
As well as lack of rainfall, it blamed loss of food stocks due to aflatoxin contamination of grains, damage to crops by wildlife and an increase in grain prices for the crisis.
About 120 deaths have been reported in agricultural areas in eastern Kenya due to aflatoxin, a poison found in mouldy crops.
"I am therefore declaring the current drought situation in the country a national disaster," Mr Kibaki said. "I appeal to both local and international communities to complement our own efforts in combating the negative effects of this drought."