Unusually large numbers of livestock deaths in northern Kenya signalled a critical food crisis which could lead to a bigger catastrophe in the New Year, a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman said Friday. The WFP official declined to comment on local media reports of people dying in the barren region bordering Ethiopia and Somalia. "It is hard to say whether they died due to lack of food, but it is certainly hard to fend off illness when one is already weakened by malnutrition," the WFP official in Nairobi added in a statement carried by DPA. The area bordering southern Ethiopia and southern Somalia is also suffering from short rainfall with Somalia currently weathering its worst cereal harvest in the last decade. WFP is currently feeding 1.1 million people in northern and eastern Kenya after the failure of the October-December short rains, but estimate the number could reach to 2.5 million early next year. "The situation is rapidly deteriorating and while it can take up to three months for food aid to reach the areas where it is most needed, we can buy food locally if we get cash donations now," the WFP official said. The deaths of about 30 per cent of livestock, the only source of wealth in the mostly pastoralist areas, has increased conflict over dwindling water points in the affected regions, according to a Kenyan government official. WFP is currently delivering food aid by road to Somalia after two food aid shipments, one destined for victims of last year's tsunami disaster, were pirated earlier this year. --SP 00 54 Local Time 21 54 GMT
