Rain continues to evade the Horn of Africa

Steff Gaulter in Al-Jazeera.net: The Horn of Africa is no stranger to dry spells, but this year has been exceptional where the worst drought in 60 years is affecting Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda. The British government is now promising to lead the world's response with a $60 million contribution - a donation estimated to be enough to feed 1.3 million people for three months.

Andrew Mitchell, the secretary of International Development, says this would include 329,000 malnourished children and mothers. The problems of the drought are being compounded by the conflict in Somalia, which has hampered aid efforts inside the country. The drought is also helping to drive up food prices in the region, making matters even worse for its impoverished people. In Kenya, the price of staples like maize, has increased over 27 per cent in the last three months.

But this pales in comparison with a United Nations reports that says some food prices in neighbouring Somalia have gone up by as much as 270 per cent in the past year alone. This region of Africa usually sees two rainy seasons a year: the first between March and May and the second in November and December. The rains at the end of 2010 were well below average and this spring's rainy season also failed to live up to expectations. The current drought is thought to have been exacerbated by the conditions in the Pacific Ocean. Until recently, the surface waters of the Pacific were a little cooler than usual.

The change in temperatures was only small, at its maximum the drop was only about one and a half Celsius, but for the ocean this is a huge change, in fact one of the largest changes on record...

Pastoralists in Ethiopia, shot by hirmoge, public domain