Humanitarian funding needed as nearly 4 million Kenyans face hunger

Nearly four million Kenyans will need humanitarian food assistance between June this year and January, with demand peaking during the September-October lean season.

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, refugees and communities in the pastoral counties of Mandera, Garissa, Wajir, Marsabit, and Turkana are the most at risk.

FEWS NET warned that serious conditions could persist in the Dadaab, Kakuma, and Kalobeyei refugee camps through January, deteriorating to emergency level after September if humanitarian funding is not secured.

Across the pastoral counties, constrained incomes and high food prices are expected to continue driving crisis outcomes.

Conditions are expected to improve to the stressed level between October and January as above-average short rains boost pasture, water availability, and livestock productivity. However, Mandera County — the area hardest hit by the failed 2025 short rains — is expected to remain in crisis through January, according to FEWS NET.

In marginal agricultural areas, food stocks from the March-to-May harvest are expected to sustain households through August, while agricultural labor during the short rains will provide additional income ahead of the December green harvests and January dry harvest.

Despite these improvements, FEWS NET projects that many households will continue relying on stress-coping strategies to meet essential non-food needs.

In Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands, where livestock are the main source of food and income, inadequate rainfall reduces pasture, water, and milk production, while increasing livestock migration and conflict over scarce resources.

Many pastoral households are still recovering from the 2020-2023 drought, which left 4.4 million Kenyans acutely food insecure at its peak in February 2023. Although favorable rainfall in 2024 and early 2025 improved food security, the failed 2025 short rains erased many of those gains across northern and eastern Kenya.

Average to above-average long rains this year have supported a gradual recovery, and FEWS NET says forecast above-average short rains could further improve food security if accompanied by sustained humanitarian assistance.

edithmutethya@chinadaily.com.cn