Press Briefing by Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator, in Nairobi, Kenya

Good evening. This morning, the United Nations issued a famine declaration for South and Central Somalia. I also had a chance this morning to visit with Somali refugees in the Dadaab camp, and to visit other drought-affected communities inside of Kenya at Wajir. What I saw was striking. At Dadaab, I saw young child after young child weary from a long journey, lined up waiting for access to food, medicine, basic services that can make the difference in saving their lives. I met mothers, like Habiba (ph), a woman who had traveled for 33 days by foot with her two children, suffered a robbery along the way, in order to arrive at Dadaab and have access to safety, food, and basic human security. We visited a four-year-old boy who, in the acute malnutrition wing of the hospital at Dadaab, weighed only 8.7 kilograms at the age of 4, and was reliant on a naso-gastric feeding tube and very specific feeding regimens in order to, hopefully, survive. (Full Text)