Josette Sheeran, the director of the UN World Food Programme, sent this message yesterday via WFP USA about the famine in East Africa.
Here is the text of the letter:
I’ve just returned from a trip to Somalia and Kenya where it’s truly a life and death situation. I met a young mother in Mogadishu who walked for four days in search of food. She lost three children.
The famine is taking countless lives, mostly children. We’ve been scaling up our operations for six months, but Somalia has been hit especially hard by consecutive droughts and an ongoing conflict that has limited humanitarian access.
We’re starting emergency airlifts to get food to children who desperately need it.
The suffering is terrible across the Horn of Africa. In Kenya, lack of water and high food prices are causing a dramatic rise in the number of severely malnourished children. At the refugee camps in Dadaab, which I visited on Saturday, we’re providing three-week food rations to families arriving from Somalia, many of whom haven’t eaten for days.
Your recent contribution provides food that will save lives. Thank you so much for your generosity.
We’ll keep you updated on the situation and how we’re responding. As always, thank you for fighting hunger with World Food Program USA.
Sincerely,
Josette
Josette Sheeran
Executive Director
World Food Program
To donate visit www.wfpusa.org/hornofafrica
Author William Lambers 