Four-year drought pushes 23 million Africans to brink of starvation

Four-year drought pushes 23 million Africans to brink of starvation – Times Online.

“The last time I had a good harvest was 2003 — there has been nothing at all for the last three years,” said Mutindi Maithya, 36, a widow who lives with her six children on a four- acre plot of sun-baked land.

Sitting beneath a thorny acacia tree, she picks up ochre lumps of dried mud from the ground and crushes them to dust between her fingers. “It is hard to cope,” she said.

A four-year drought has pushed as many as 23 million people to the brink of starvation across East Africa, making it the worst in a decade or more. Close to four million of those at risk are in Kenya, where one person in ten survives on emergency rations.

Last week clouds gathered over much of the country, but the rains have come too late to bring much relief. Aid agencies have warned that with them will come flooding, cholera, malaria and hypothermia.