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Appeal ahead of east Africa 'crisis'  A new emergency appeal has been launched by Oxfam to prevent the east Africa region from 'tipping into crisis'.
The charity says up to 13 million people need urgent humanitarian assistance following droughts, violent conflict and rising global food prices.
According to Oxfam the current situation in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya is "much, much worse than it has been for a very long time".
Oxfam is calling on the British public and international donors to support its current projects in the region, which reach an estimated half a million people.
Oxfam's Rob McNeil, who just returned from a trip to east Africa, said the region was facing a "catastrophe in the making".
"The cost of food has escalated by up to 500 per cent in some places, leaving people who have suffered drought after drought in utter destitution. Some of the roads we travelled on were littered with dead livestock," he said.
"There is little or no pasture or water for the animals that people rely upon. People are increasingly becoming desperate. I saw people in one village reduced to pounding the food pellets intended for their animals into porridge to feed their families. We fear that the worst could be yet to come as the crisis deteriorates across east Africa."
In Ethiopia the number of people needing emergency food assistance - 4.6 million – has doubled since the beginning of the year.
In both Kenya and Somalia a quarter of children are acutely malnourished, while in the latter half of the country's population are forecast to be in need of emergency aid by the end of the year.
Commenting, Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking said: "The British public always responds generously to emergency appeals but the public must be asking why does this happen year after year. The answer is that the world consistently fails to address adequately the underlying causes of these crises.
"Chronic poverty in a world of gross inequality of wealth and opportunity lie at the heart of these cyclical crises. Both governments in the rich and poor world need to invest in a concerted action to tackle the underlying causes. We need to act to save lives in the short term but without investment in the long term as well then scenes of destitution will continue to haunt our shared conscience."
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