The drought which is currently engulfing parts of East Africa is the worst to hit the region in over 60 years. According to the United Nations, over 12.4 million people are now facing starvation, with entire families and communities abandoning their homes in desperate search of food and water.

SOS Children is helping those who need it most urgently in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, the most badly affected countries, by working in refugee camps and communities and establishing therapeutic feeding centres, medical clinics and starting  vaccination campaigns.

We need your help to ensure we can continue to reach vulnerable children and families. We are a well established, experienced, charity in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya with a clear strategy on what to do. We need your help to make direct tangible actions which make the difference. The best way to help famine victims in East Africa with SOS Children is through a child or village sponsorship, or a regular donation.

A child or village sponsorship helps us to focus on the long-term welfare of children who have no one to care for them as a result of the famine:

Sponsor in East Africa

Regular donations give us money we can rely on and support us to stay in the affected countries as long as it takes to rebuild lives:

Regular donation to East Africa

You can also support our work in East Africa by making a one-off donation directly to our Emergency Relief Programme:

East Africa donation

Worst crisis in 60 years

SOS Children's Emergency Relief Programmes in East Africa

A number of catastrophic factors have combined to create the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. As well as drought and soaring food prices, ongoing political instability and violent conflict are adding further complexity to the desperate situation in these countries.

In Somalia, many families are trekking for weeks in the hope of finding help in refugee camps in other areas of the country, or in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia. There are reports of orphaned and unaccompanied minors arriving at refugee camps alone. In some cases, parents have sent their children to the camps with other family members, whilst they remain behind hoping for a change in the situation.

The conditions in the refugee camps are desperate. The largest refugee camp in the world, Dadaab, in Kenya is currently home to 380,000 refugees. Many more families are waiting to be registered at the Kenya-Somali border. The situation in Ethiopia is similar, with a reported 2,000 refugees arriving at the Doolow Ado camp every day. Children and women are the most vulnerable. And in Somalia, thousands of drought-affected families from all over the Bay and Bakool regions in central are arriving every day to overcrowded camps in Mogadishu in search of food and medical care. 

SOS Children’s Emergency Relief Programme

In order to help those in need, SOS Children have set up an Emergency Relief Programme to provide food, water, shelter and medical care to thousands of children and families struggling to survive in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

SOS Children's Regional Strategy Coordinator for East Africa, Charles Bury, believes that SOS Children’s strength lies in the established presence we have in the countries concerned. He says “We have been there for so long, and we have such good relationships within the communities in which we are working…we are able to use that relationship to respond quickly to things like the emergency that we are seeing now in this region.”

Read more about our Emergency Relief Programmes in Somalia

Read more about our Emergency Relief Programmes in Kenya and Ethiopia

As well as meeting their immediate needs, SOS Children are concerned with the long-term welfare of the children in the refugee camps. We will help to reunite families, and if necessary, provide a new home for children orphaned as a result of the famine in our SOS Children’s Villages.

East Africa Famine News