Abdi, four, has his upper arm measured by a Save the Children worker at a treatment center for malnourished children in the Mandera district of north-east Kenya. Abdi had lost a third of his weight due to malnutrition. Save the Children is feeding the most vulnerable children and mothers, and we're treating children suffering from malnutrition.

A deadly combination of crop failures, year-on-year droughts, the effects of climate change, conflicts and political turmoil is affecting millions of people across East Africa.

Up to 20 million people are facing severe hunger, leaving them in desperate need of emergency food aid. Across Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia child malnutrition rates rising.

Without emergency food aid many children will become severely malnourished. Without enough food their immune systems are severely weakened and they're more likely to die from preventable diseases.

East Africa's recent erratic weather patterns indicate a changing climate. While drought reccurs in many parts of East Africa, the prolonged droughts put vulnerable communities at the knife edge of climate change. We're providing life-saving interventions to the most affected communities in the region.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia's recent rains have failed. With food price increases, 6.4 million Ethiopians need emergency food assistance. Half of them are children. Hungry children are vulnerable to contracting acute watery diarrhoea, cases of which are being reported across the country. We're delivering aid through food distributions, emergency nutrition programmes, and emergency health assistance.

Kenya

Poor rains, declines in food stocks and rising food prices have left 10 million people without enough to eat. Four million Kenyans need emergency food aid now.

After four consecutive years of poor rain and drought, Kenya has experienced severe crop failure which has cut maize supplies by almost a third. Food prices more than doubled in 2008. As a result, we estimate that there are up to 100,000 more malnourished children in the country.

A quarter of the population live on less than $1 a day. The poorest families are struggling to cope. In Mandera, where we operate a programme for treating malnourished children, one in every three children are acutely malnourished.

In the north-east of Kenya we're working with rural communities, where people are particularly vulnerable to droughts and food insecurity. We're also still working in the refugee camps of Dadaab to provide relief to those living in the desperately overcrowded conditions.

Somalia

Somalia is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in nearly 20 years. Internal conflict has ravaged Somalia for 18 years, causing people to flee their homes across the country and sometimes over neighbouring borders. On top of this, endemic poverty, recurrent droughts and flooding have ruined the livelihoods of those left behind.

Now, after five years of failed rains, crops have failed and livestock are dying. U.N aid officials have stated that some 3.76 million Somalis, over half the population, are currently in need of life-saving food assistance. Children are paying the price of this crisis and malnutrition rates are alarmingly high. One in five Somali children are now malnourished.

We've been there since 1992. And we're increasing our work there to reach the growing numbers of people affected by the crisis.

But we need your help to carry on reaching the most vulnerable children and scale up our responses in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia where the situation is continuing to deteriorate.

How you can help

Please help us to reach more children. Donate today to our East Africa Appeal.