Rome, Italy, Aug 4, 2011 / 11:30 am
Over 6,000 children in drought-stricken east Africa will receive a daily meal from this week onward. It is all thanks a charity founded by a Catholic aid worker who was recently declared a “CNN Hero” and awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth for his work.
“The situation in east Africa has become increasingly desperate, with failed rains leading to dire food and water shortages. What was already a crisis has become an emergency,” Magnus MacFarlane Barrow, chief executive of Mary’s Meals, told CNA from the charity’s headquarters in Argyll, Scotland.
The initiative will focus upon the Turkana area of northern Kenya. It is just one of four countries in east Africa that have declared drought areas by the United Nations. The others are Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia.
The present drought is thought to be the worst in 60 years.