“A hunger crisis engulfing the Horn of Africa could become a wider catastrophe unless immediate action is taken” WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran warned delegates an emergency meeting convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization.

UN agencies and humanitarian partners are rallying to provide life-saving assistance to 12.4 million people across the Horn of Africa, but needs are rising.

A food crisis, triggered by drought, conflict and high food prices, has gripped the region, affecting parts of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia. Famine has been declared in two provinces in southern Somalia. While much more is needed, water, food, shelter, protection and health and sanitation services are already reaching some of the most vulnerable people. About 1.25 million children across southern Somalia are in urgent need of life-saving assistance. In the Somali capital of Mogadishu humanitarian assistance is severely hampered by the ongoing military offensive against Al-Shabaab and access to southern Somalia remains severely limited.

“The children of Southern Somalia desperately need our help. Too many of them have already died and many others are at great risk unless we act now,” said Rozanne Chorlton, UNICEF Somalia Representative.

“Families shouldn’t have to leave their homes, mothers and their children shouldn’t have to endure days of perilous journey in search of food and water and then face a life of uncertainty in a camp.

All our energy should be focused on saving lives.” UNICEF estimates it will need USD $117 million over the next six months to reach children in all of Somalia’s drought affected areas in the south with emergency and preventative assistance.

“We have a huge need right now for airlift operations to get in the ready-to-use therapeutic food,” says UNICEF’s Director of Public Sector Alliances and Resource Mobilization, Afshan Khan.

“So if there are in-kind donations in terms of airlift and air operations, that will be extremely helpful.” Droughts have become cyclical in eastern Africa, and 2011 has been the driest in 60 years.

“Children don’t choose where they are born, to whom they are born, what type of government rules them, what type of context within which they will grow up, thrive and survive,” notes Ms. Khan.

“There is a moral obligation to respond in this crisis. We are all human beings.”