Drought, aid cuts push northern Kenya pastoralists toward starvation

In Loperot village, Turkana county, 76-year-old widow Echakan Amaja sits outside her mud hut surviving on foraged gingerbread fruit and the scant aid rations that reach her. Her son was killed a fortnight ago in a cattle rustling raid while herding animals and all their livestock were stolen, leaving the family without their primary source of food and income, Reuters reporters Jefferson Kahinju and Thomas Mukoya reported from the field.

“Four years after a record drought devastated northern Kenya, failed rains are once again causing starvations, with aid cuts forcing agencies to scale back their efforts and feed fewer people,” Reuters wrote, as humanitarian teams confront growing needs with smaller budgets. Drone imagery by Reuters photographer Thomas Mukoya showed emaciated cattle walking in a dried river bed near Magadi township in Kajiado, underlining the visible toll on herds that sustain pastoral households.

Estimates of the crisis vary by source but all point to a large-scale emergency. Welthungerhilfe reported that drought has affected some 4.5 million people in Kenya, with 2.8 million in a critical food situation and nearly one million children under five acutely malnourished and requiring treatment. Healthbusiness Co Ke placed the toll at 3.3 million Kenyans facing acute hunger in the country’s arid and semi-arid lands. Al Jazeera described “more than two million” facing hunger and cited U.N. health officials who said the October–December wet period ranked among the driest recorded, leaving eastern Kenya with its worst drought for that season since 1981.

A coalition led by Action Against Hunger appealed for 24 billion Kenyan shillings, roughly $180 million, to mount a coordinated response. The Kenya Food Security Steering Group has estimated total needs as high as 30 billion shillings, while the government has released 6 billion shillings so far, Healthbusiness reported. Humanitarian partners say the gap is forcing cuts to feeding programs and other lifesaving services.

The public health implications are immediate. Healthworkers in overstretched clinics measure toddlers’ upper arms and report children falling into the red band that signals severe acute malnutrition, Healthbusiness observed. Welthungerhilfe warned that many pastoralist families have already lost up to 70 percent of their livestock. Mothers are trekking up to 20 kilometers in some areas to fetch water, scooping muddy pools from dry riverbeds, and clinics face increased caseloads for malnutrition and water-borne disease.

Protection and social impacts are mounting as households exhaust coping strategies. Agencies warn of heightened risks of early marriage and gender-based violence, and Welthungerhilfe said up to 1.9 million children risk irregular school attendance as families prioritize survival.

Humanitarian groups are urging a rapid, multisector response: scale up malnutrition screening and treatment, restore mobile health outreach, expand emergency water provision, provide livestock feed and veterinary support, and increase cash transfers so families can buy food. Without rapid funding increases and better coordination, aid agencies warn more families in Turkana and the wider Horn of Africa may slide into irreversible hunger. The drought echoes the 2020–2023 crisis when millions of animals perished across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, and relief workers say they cannot afford a repeat.