Right now across East Africa, drought, war and lack of food have left millions of children and their families facing starvation. More than 880,000 children are severely malnourished and in immediate and desperate need of life-saving food. Famine has been declared in part of South Sudan and Somalia is on the brink of famine. When famine is declared, it means four children out of every 10,000 die every day because of a lack of food. We must act now to save as many children’s lives as possible.

Unicef is already working for children in East Africa. Our teams are there, providing starving children in even the most remote areas with the life-saving food and clean water they desperately need to survive. We are also working with our partners across East Africa to support the training of health workers to identify and treat cases of severe malnutrition. Without our work to prevent malnutrition and to protect children’s health, many more children could be affected by this famine.