Uganda has launched emergency food relief distribution after at least 19 deaths from hunger were reported in an area of prolonged drought in the east of the country.
A crisis has been building in the Karamoja region of Uganda as crops have failed without the season’s expected rains, leaving the region’s 1.5 million people facing acute food shortages and rising malnutrition.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net), a global mapping network designed to raise the alert on food security, reported the situation had deteriorated to a crisis across Karamoja.
In the first large-scale operation of its kind organised by the Ugandan government after the funding void left by aid cuts, authorities announced plans to distribute 9,400 tonnes of relief food over the next two months.
The supplies were procured using a 45bn-shilling (£9m) emergency funding allocation, approved by parliament.
Sam Engola, minister for disaster preparedness and refugees, launched the aid distribution efforts at a primary school in Lodiko sub-county in Kaabong district on Wednesday.
“The president does not want to hear of anyone in Karamoja dying of hunger.
I am here to supervise the distribution of this food to the end.