East Africa’s hunger crisis needs global action, says Oxfam

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA
Associated Press

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The aid agency Oxfam International warns that widespread hunger across East Africa could become “a catastrophe” without an injection of funds to the region’s most vulnerable communities. An estimated 13 million people are facing severe hunger in the Horn of Africa as a result of persistent drought conditions, according to the United Nations. Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher said in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi that only 3% of the needed $6 billion has been raised for the food assistance amid “competing priorities,” as the world’s attention has focused on the humanitarian crisis in the war in Ukraine.