Four counties in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) have sunk into the “alert” drought phase, leaving about a million people at risk of starvation, the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said on Thursday.
According to an NDMA report released in Nairobi, the country’s capital, the four regions’ transition to the alert phase comes after a long period in which all 23 ASAL counties in the East African nation stayed in the “normal” phase.
“The situation is on a worsening trend across most of the ASAL counties due to the delayed onset of the October to December season,” the NDMA said.
The agency said it has also noted acute malnutrition across the counties, “with 479,498 children aged six to 59 months and 110,169 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers currently acutely malnourished and in need of treatment.”
The four counties at the alert phase of drought are Garissa, Kilifi, Kwale, and Tana River, while the counties with cases of malnutrition include Baringo, Turkana, Kitui, Laikipia, Lamu, Makueni, and West Pokot, according to the report.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an East African bloc, noted in a recent report that the number of food-insecure people in the Horn of Africa stands at 67 million.
