Severe drought that has impacted large swathes of Southern Africa is threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in the six worst-affected countries, UNICEF says.
UNICEF warns that more than 270,000 children are expected to suffer from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in 2024.
“El Niño-related weather conditions, including extremely low rainfall, have resulted in Lesotho becoming the latest country to declare a state of national food disaster following similar declarations from Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe,” UNICEF says in a statement released on Thursday.
“The humanitarian needs children are facing due to El Niño are extremely concerning,” said UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Etleva Kadilli.
“Thousands of children are on the brink of being irreversibly impacted in their health and growth because of the climate-related crisis, and this warning should not go unheard by the international community,” Kadilli adds.
In Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, 7.4 million children are living in child food poverty, exacerbated across large parts of Southern Africa due to drought, UNICEF says.
UNICEF called for urgent acceleration and scale-up of lifesaving programmes across the region to reduce the risk of increased numbers of children becoming malnourished.
In Lesotho, approximately 700,000 people are reported to be food vulnerable, UNICEF said.
In Malawi, an estimated 5.7 million people are expected to experience high levels of acute food insecurity between October 2024 and March 2025.
In Namibia, almost half of the country’s population faces the devastating impact of a severe drought brought on by El Niño.
In Zambia, 2 million people, with almost 52,000 children under the age of five in the 84 drought-affected districts, are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition.
In Botswana, almost 12,000 children under the age of five are underweight due to lower agricultural production.
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