https://ift.tt/qNXWeFT. first lady Jill Biden made a high-profile visit to a tiny Kenyan community to draw attention to the severe drought that has gripped East Africa and created an unprecedented food insecurity crisis in Kenya.
The United States has provided the lion’s share of humanitarian aid to East Africa after rains failed here for a third straight year, causing unprecedented hunger that stretches from Somalia to this dusty Maasai village just three hours from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
The U.N. chief for Kenya told VOA that 6 million people are on the brink of extreme hunger this year and that the situation is exacerbated by the food-supply crisis caused by the conflict in Ukraine.
But the world’s richest nation can’t walk this road alone, Biden said after her visit to the Maasai village which is suffering the worst drought seen in this area in seven generations. The trip came at the end of a five-day visit that took her to Kenya and the Southwest African nation of Namibia.
“The United States is providing 70% of the budget, the money, that’s coming into this region. But we cannot be the only ones,” she told reporters after her 90-minute visit. “We need to have other countries join us in this global effort to help these people of the region.”
To get there, Biden made a three-hour journey to remote southern Kenya, near the border with Tanzania. The drive took her large motorcade through villages with emaciated cows, dried-up creek beds and packed churches on a hot, bright Sunday morning — all the way to a remote church that serves as an humanitarian assistance station.
In Lositeti, Biden was greeted by thousands of residents of the largely Maasai community — many who had walked from within a 40-kilometer radius to reach the area’s only water point. A group of residents sang and danced as they draped Biden in a bright red shuka, the traditional robe worn by the pastoralist people who are famed for their skill as warriors and hunters.
Biden sat with a small group of women under a lone tree and for 30 minutes, asked them questions, with the help of an interpreter, about their experience of this crisis, which the United Nations’ resident coordinator in Kenya, Stephen Jackson, said is driven by climate change and exacerbated by the global food supply crisis.