A two-year drought across the countries of Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa is taking its toll on the most vulnerable people: subsistence farmers and pastoralists. In Kenya’s northwestern Turkana region, the worst drought in 40 years is forcing people to sell weakened animals at below market rates in order to survive. Others are moving into emergency feeding centres.
The UN’s World Food Program is feeding one in six Kenyans, almost 4 million people, and says it needs $300 million to feed them for the next six months. Ethiopia’s government has launched an international appeal for $175 million in aid to head off the crisis. AllAfrica, BBC, Wall Street Journal
North Korea has told five international aid agencies that supply food aid to leave, the US State Department has announced. No reason appears to have been given, but the US “hinted” that it could be linked to a “US request to issue visas for Korean-speaking monitors from the World Food Program (WFP),” according to The Korea Times.
