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An elderly man tries to pull out an emaciated calf that got stuck while drinking water from one of the few water pans left with water in the drought-stricken region of Kwangite, in Ganze, in Kilifi County, 07 October 2021. An estimated over 2 million Kenyans face starvation due to the ongoing drought that has affected majorly ten counties suffering from lack of water and harvest living thousands of animals died in the North, North East and Coast, some of the most affected regions are in the coastal region including Kilifi, Lamu and Tana River. Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the drought as a “National Disaster” last month and ordered the immediate release of emergency relief food for the victims which the government started to distribute last week. Residents of the Ganze region in Kilifi which is one of the most affected regions by the drought, are forced to walk for more than six hours to fetch water from one of the 20% water pans remaining with water as 80% of the rest have dried up and they have also resulted to slaughtering and drying the meat from their animals that die due to hunger as a way of preserving some food for later use as they wait on the relief food. More than 400,000 people suffer from water shortage in the coastal region and more than 6,500 heard of cattle have died in Kilifi County and more than 4,000 in Tana River, according to Hassan Musa Director of Kenya Red Cross, Coast Region. (Photo by Daniel Irungu/EPA/EFE)
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