Over 60 million people in East Africa have been affected by the worst drought to hit the region in over 60 years with the hardest hit areas being Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Unable to survive on the already sparse supply of food and water, millions of people are migrating hundreds of miles by foot in search of refugee camps. Tragically many won’t survive the journey with hundreds of thousands of children predicted to perish as a result.

The UN estimates that $2.4bn will be required to address the crisis. But many people say that the tragedy was entirely predictable and preventable.

In Somalia, the price of cereal red sorghum has risen by 240% since 2010 with a 90kg bag of maize now being bartered for 5 goats instead of 1. Some 3.2 million people in Somalia are in need of immediate life-saving assistance – almost half the population. Across all livelihoods, poor households, which equates to 30% of the population, are unable to meet basic food needs and have almost no ability to cope with these food deficits.

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