More than 50 million people across the East African region are expected to face acute food insecurity this year.
Report informs, citing foreign media, that Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, warned on Friday that some 300,000 in Somalia and South Sudan are projected to be under full-blown famine conditions.
The assessment by IGAD is one of the most dire yet as United Nations agencies, humanitarian groups and others continue to raise alarm over the region's food crisis that many say has been largely neglected as the international community focuses on the war in Ukraine.
That assessment applies to seven member states of IGAD, from Djibouti to Uganda.
Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, is travelling in East Africa to spotlight the hunger crisis in the region.
Power earlier in the week spoke of the need to prevent the global food crisis from becoming a catastrophe, announcing $1.2 billion in funding that includes immediate food assistance for people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.