CARE EMERGENCY ALERT: Famine and Refugee Crisis in Africa

Donate Now
Donate Now

"We were hungry and couldn't get work. We traveled as a family but soon after we arrived my husband died, leaving me a widow and my children without a father.
I just need help — anything."

— Dainabo, a 30-year-old mother of three, who
arrived in Dadaab after walking for six days

Famine has been officially declared in five regions of Somalia and the United Nations expects the famine to spread across all regions within two months. Somalia currently has the highest malnutrition level in the world today with malnutrition rates at more than 50 percent. The declaration of famine confirms that the food crisis in the Horn of Africa is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today, and there is no likelihood of improvement until 2012.

More than 12.4 million people suffering from the famine, drought and lack of food in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti. They are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance. Many are so hungry that they risk starving to death. More help is needed now.

Today, more than 400,000 refugees are in Dadaab, Kenya, where the world's largest refugee camps are located. Up to 1,500 people arriving at the camps every day — 80 percent of them are women and children who are exhausted, weak and extremely hungry from their long trek. Almost half the children arriving to the camps from southern Somalia are malnourished, and increasing numbers of children are reported to be on the verge of death as they reach refugee camps.

According to the United Nations, an additional $1.4 billion is needed to feed the hungry and care for the sick in the Horn of Africa. Please help save lives while supporting CARE's work around the world!

CARE has worked in Dadaab since 1992 and is the primary distributor of food, water and primary education for 400,000 refugees living in and around the camps. CARE is providing people with 15 litres of water per day. We are also distributing food baskets and non-food items, including blankets, bed mats, buckets and cooking sets to new arrivals.

Without additional funding, the food aid pipeline for refugees will run dry by September.
Alexandra Lopoukhin, CARE emergency media officer at the refugee camps, shares her observations:

"Some families have walked two weeks. Two weeks. Sleeping where they could, pushing on to get to this camp. The children are much smaller than they should be. One story I heard was devastating: a mother walking, arrives at the clinic, takes her baby off her back and finds it has died without her knowing. I can't even imagine the pain this causes her. One man spoke to us in perfect English — he told us he has been a refugee since 1991, and now, here among the newly arrived, is his grandfather."

Women and children make up the majority of the new arrivals at the camps. Many mothers set out on the journey with their children, leaving husbands behind to tend to what remains of their herd or other business. The women and children may walk for weeks before they arrive at the camps.

Often, when families register at the camps, they find out they are overflowing — they were originally built to hold 92,000 people — so the families settle in areas that are located further and further away from the emergency services they need. About 30,000 refugees have set up makeshift homes in these areas. In addition, the scattered, unplanned and unmonitored sites are further exacerbating women’s vulnerability to rape and sexual violence. CARE is offering one-to-one counseling for survivors of these attacks, and others traumatized by violence and death.

Recently, the government of Kenya opened a fourth camp, which will provide shelter to an additional 40,000 refugees. CARE will help people at this camp with food, water and other emergency assistance efforts.

Together, we can help people get back on their feet during this time of crisis, and partner with women, families and communities around the world to develop long-term solutions to hunger and poverty.

By making a gift to CARE, you can help us continue to lead efforts to rush lifesaving aid to people who need it desperately, maintain our peacekeeping work in Kenya and Ethiopia, and assist people enduring the causes and consequences of hunger and poverty around the world.

CARE's strength, in both long-term development and emergency response, lies in our deep roots and connections in the communities where we work. More than 90 percent of our 11,000 staff are citizens from the countries where they work, helping CARE develop close ties to the community. At the Dadaab camps in CARE's food distribution center, more than 1,600 refugees work alongside CARE staff to distribute food baskets and non-food items to the new arrivals. We have worked effectively in the Horn of Africa for more than 20 years, where we are heralded as a trusted partner.