Jill Biden visits Kenya, calls for more aid to deal with record drought in Horn of Africa

US First Lady Jill Biden, who was on a two-day visit in Kenya over the weekend, called on wealthy nations to give more to countries in the Horn of Africa, which is experiencing its worst drought in four decades.

Five straight seasons of poor rainfall have killed millions of livestock, destroyed crops and left some 22 million people at risk of hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, with a sixth season also forecast to fail. On Sunday, the first lady visited affected communities in Kenya. The US has funded most of the aid to deal with the climate disaster, which has led to the death of millions of livestock and destroyed crops.

“We can’t be alone. We need other countries to join us in this global effort to help people in the region,” Jill Biden said at an aid distribution point in Kajiado, south of Nairobi. “Unfortunately, you know there’s the war in Ukraine. There’s the earthquake in Turkey. I mean there are a lot of conflicting interests, but obviously here… people are starving,” she said.

Jill Biden, who earlier this week visited Namibia, listened to parents struggling to feed their children and communities unable to get water. Drought was one of the main themes of her visit to Africa, along with food security and agriculture. Jill Biden travelled to Kenya from Namibia, part of a two-nation tour aimed at deepening ties with the continent, which has become a renewed diplomatic battleground following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. This is Biden’s first trip to Africa as the first lady of the United States.