There is a massive drought in East Africa that is killing people.
Thousands of people, many of them women are children, are fleeing and end up in refuee camps like the one in Kenya.
And they are suffering so much.
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The children are presenting with skin complications where their skin is peeling off mainly due to deficiency in micro-nutrients," Milhia Abdul Kader says. "They are coming in a very bad shape."
Speaking to Al Jazeera from a refugee camp in Kenya, Antonio Guterres, the head of UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, expressed grave concern and appealed for "massive aid" to provide the basic necessities.
UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres speaks to Al Jazeera from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya
"I have no doubt that in today's world, Somalia corresponds to the worst humanitarian disaster. I have never seen in a refugee camp people coming in such desperate conditions," he said.
"I saw a mother that had lost three of her children on the way here."
http://english.aljazeera.net/...
Some make the terrible choice of not seeking medical care for their children because they have more children they need to take care of, finding the essentials of life for them. In essence the sick children are being sacrified to save the rest.
The drought is affecting all the countries in the horn of Africa (map below) with Sudan being particularly affected and thousands fleeing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/...
A combination of several seasons of no rain and rising global food prices and according to one un offical, climate change, has lead to about 12 million people in the Horn being affected.
54,000 people crossed into Ethiopia and Kenya in June alone. Levels of serious malnutrition amongst newly arrived children in Ethiopia are exceeding 50 per cent, while in Kenya levels are reaching 30 to 40 per cent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
Abshira Abdukadir, a four-year-old Somali girl suffering from severe diarrhea and having trouble breathing, is looked after by her parents hours after they finally reached a refugee camp in northeast Kenya and were able to get medical assistance for their ailing daughter on July 6, 2011. Abshira's parents who etched a living as farmers in Baradhere, Somalia, say that their daughter became sick 10 days ago and they finally decided to leave their home in Somalia, where, they say "for the last six months nothing was growing". Dadaab, a complex of three settlements, is the world's largest refugee camp. Built to house 90,000 people and home to more than four times that number, it was already well over its maximum capacity before an influx of 30,000 refugees in June. AFP PHOTO/Roberto SCHMIDT (Photo credit should read ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)
Eleven-month-old Abdifatah Hassan is treated for severe malnutrition at a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) in Dadaab. As the camp is at bursting point doctors are forced to go into the desert to support vulnerable new arrivals seeking immediate medical attention. (Getty)
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