East Africa is facing its worst drought in more than 60 years, creating the most severe food crisis in the world today.

Consecutive years of failed rains have caused devastating losses of livestock, incomes and food supplies.

Famine has been declared in six regions of southern and central Somalia, where over 750,000 people are at risk of starvation. Currently, over 13.3 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti are in need of urgent assistance. The emergency is expected to persist at least until 2012, with the likelihood that famine will spread into additional areas of southern Somalia.

An estimated 1.5 million people are displaced within Somalia while another 273,000 Somalis have fled to overcrowded refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Djibouti between January and September 2011, according to UNHCR. CARE is the primary provider of food, water and other essential services in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, which shelter more than 463,000 people, the vast majority of them Somalis.