Dadaab, Kenya, Jul 17, 2011 / 12:10 pm
The U.K.-based Catholic Agency for Overseas Development is appealing to the world on behalf of 10 million East Africans facing starvation and death due to a severe drought.
“As we are talking now, we're seeing 10 million people at risk,” said the agency's International Director Geoff O'Donoghue, in a July 9 Vatican Radio interview. “We are trying to get resources to put clean water, medicine and food alongside these communities – to get alongside people and support them to survive.”
Some aid workers say this year's drought conditions in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan are the worst in living memory. O'Donoghue noted that no rains will likely arrive until October, “and even then they're not guaranteed.”
The international director said his agency was working to provide “very basic provisions – water, food, medicine, shelter for those who've had to move, prioritizing the youngest and the elderly.”