{"id":3888,"date":"2026-09-22T11:57:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T11:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/?p=3888"},"modified":"2026-09-22T11:57:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T11:57:04","slug":"el-nino-could-push-8-million-children-into-acute-hunger-in-east-and-southern-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/22\/el-nino-could-push-8-million-children-into-acute-hunger-in-east-and-southern-africa\/politics\/regional\/","title":{"rendered":"El Ni\u00f1o could push 8 million children into acute hunger in East and Southern Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/20260901_ESARO_V1.webp-1024x683.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3889\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/20260901_ESARO_V1.webp-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/20260901_ESARO_V1.webp-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/20260901_ESARO_V1.webp-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/20260901_ESARO_V1.webp.jpeg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">About 8 million children in six East and Southern African countries could face crisis-level hunger or worse by early 2027 as a powerful El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern threatens to worsen drought, flooding and food insecurity, Save the Children said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The organisation&#8217;s analysis of recent data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) estimates that the number of people facing IPC Phase 3 or worse hunger in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Uganda and Kenya could rise from 12.6 million currently to 16.4 million by March 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That would represent an increase of about 30%. The number of children facing severe food shortages in the six countries is expected to rise from about 6 million to 8 million, according to Save the Children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uganda is projected to have the largest number of people facing acute food insecurity, at 4.4 million by early 2027, a 22% increase from current levels. In the Karamoja region, the number of people facing crisis or emergency food insecurity has already increased by more than 40%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zambia is expected to see the sharpest deterioration, with crisis-level hunger forecast to rise by 80% to more than 1.2 million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi are projected to record increases of 75%, 55% and 35%, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kenya is expected to see an overall improvement in food security by early 2027, although the situation among refugees is forecast to worsen because of El Ni\u00f1o-related flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Save the Children said the weather shock is likely to compound existing problems including conflict, displacement, economic instability and cuts in humanitarian funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yvonne Arunga, the organisation&#8217;s regional director for East and Southern Africa, said children without adequate nutritious food face increased risks of malnutrition, illness and missing school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She urged governments and donors to act before the effects of droughts and floods intensify, saying early intervention can protect livelihoods and reduce the need for larger humanitarian responses later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The analysis did not include Somalia, where new hunger data is expected soon. The country has already been identified as vulnerable to El Ni\u00f1o-related flooding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 8 million children in six East and Southern African countries could face crisis-level hunger or worse by early 2027 as a powerful El Ni\u00f1o [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,43,53,51,41,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-news","category-current_affairs","category-featured-stories","category-health","category-hot_topics","category-regional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3890,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions\/3890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}