Starvation alert as children fill Kenya refugee ward after US aid cuts

1 day ago

Anne Soy

BBC News, Kakuma

Children on the ward are given milk every three hours in a bid to boost their intake of nutrients

BBC Two women sit on the floor of a ward at Amusait Hospital and feed milk to their young children. One woman has strings of black, white, yellow, orange and red beads around her neck. Both are wearing colourful wraps. A man wearing a blue medical mask sits at a nearby yellow plastic desk, on which there are two jugs and a cup, and looks on. — Children on the ward are given milk every three hours in a bid to boost their intake of nutrients

Hundreds of thousands of people are "slowly starving" in Kenyan refugee camps after US funding cuts reduced food rations to their lowest ever levels, a United Nations official has told the BBC.

The impact is starkly visible at a hospital in the sprawling Kakuma camp in the north-west of the East African nation. It is home to roughly 300,000 refugees who have fled strife in countries across Africa and the Middle East.

Emaciated children fill a 30-bed ward at Kakuma's Amusait Hospital, staring blankly at visitors as they receive treatment for severe acute malnutrition.

One baby, Hellen, barely moves. Parts of her skin are wrinkled and peeling, leaving angry patches of red - the result of malnutrition, a medic tells the BBC.

Across the aisle lies a nine-month-old baby, James, the eighth child of Agnes Awila, a refugee from northern Uganda.

"The food is not enough, my children eat only once a day. If there's no food what do you feed them":[]}