NAIROBI, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The UN World Food Program (WFP) warned here Friday that a humanitarian catastrophe would engulf the drought-stricken Horn of Africa unless it receives urgent donations to provide emergency food aid for an estimated 5.4 million people in four nations.

    In a statement issued in Nairobi, the UN agency appealed to donors to send urgent assistance to avert the humanitarian calamity.

    "In all four countries, it is clear that WFP will have to expand its existing operations to drought-affected populations in order to address the increasing needs. While final figures on the number of people in need of urgent assistance are still being established, donors must respond now if we are going to avert a humanitarian catastrophe," said Holdbrook Arthur, WFP regional director for eastern and central Africa.

    WFP said the current assessment results indicate the estimated numbers of people hit by drought to be 2.5 million in Kenya, 1.4 million in Somalia, 1.5 million in Ethiopia and 60,000 in Djibouti.

    The UN agency in collaboration with governments and other partners has raised the alarm in recent months about the worsening impact of drought, especially on pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in the Horn of Africa.

    "The emergency we face in the Horn today is the result of successive seasons of failed rains. Consequently, pastoralists living in these arid, remote lands have very few survival strategies left and desperately require our assistance to make it through until the next rains," said Arthur.

    WFP said children's health and nutrition are deteriorating because many of them are eating just one meal each day and the livestock that many families depend on for food are dying in large numbers from exhaustion and lack of water and food.

    In arid northeastern Kenya, women and small children are begging at roadsides for drinking water and food from motorists, the UN agency said.

    According to a joint alert released last year by the Kenyan government, WFP and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, about 2.5 million people will require assistance in 2006 in Kenya,a dramatic increase from the previous 1.1 million people being assisted by WFP and will require an extra 236,000 tons of food valued at 140 million US dollars.

    It said the current field assessments by WFP and its partners in 27 of the most-affected districts in north and east Kenya will determine the exact areas and number of people in need.

    "There are indications that the number of people in need in Kenya because of drought could rise as the year progresses. This is of grave concern, especially as WFP's current emergency operation is inadequately funded, and without additional contributions, we could be forced to halt our much-needed food assistance in February," said Arthur.

    In southern regions of Somalia, the situation is deteriorating with an estimated 1.4 million people in urgent need of assistance because of poor rains in October and November, it said.

    Somalia is headed for the worst cereal harvest in a decade and pastoralists in the south are forced to concentrate along rivers and in the few remaining green pastures, it warned.

    To compound the already grave situation in southern Somalia, WFP said piracy has hampered its efforts to provide food aid.

    In southeast Ethiopia, the number of people in dire need is estimated at 1.5 million, on top of some 5.5 million people who have already been receiving WFP assistance, it said, adding that in Djibouti, the number is feared to rise from 47,000 to 60,000 in the coming months. Enditem