Africa, consumed by hunger

As drought, famine and war ravage the Horn of Africa, nearly 29,000 children aged below five have already died. Even as it battles the worst drought in 60 years, Somalia can barely lick the wounds inflicted by civil strife, which has plagued the beleaguered nation for two decades. Impoverished refugees fleeing the country to aid camps in Kenya have to face the wrath of Al Qaeda-backed Shebab militia on the poorly policed border between the countries. The crisis, which the United Nations declared as more serious than the 1984 Ethiopia famine that claimed nearly a million lives, now threatens to spread to Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.