Nakuru MP says 20,000 students facing starvation

By Boniface Thuku

More than 20,000 school children are facing starvation in Kenya's Nakuru town constituency.

Area MP Lee Kinyanjui said on Sunday food prices have tripled due to prevailing famine in most parts of the country.

"The families of the victims cannot afford to put a meal on the table and a large number of children are leaving school to join their parents in looking for casual jobs to counter the biting pangs of hunger," said the MP.

Mr Kinyanjui said the affected schools were appealing for relief food supplies so that they could introduce feeding programmes.

Addressing a news conference at the local CDF offices, Kinyanjui warned that free primary education in urban slum areas was being threatened by the hunger situation.

"I have received reports of children fainting in the middle of lessons," he said.

The MP said the Government had responded to the situation by donating 1,200 bags of maize to support the feeding programme.

"The donation is a drop in the ocean considering the magnitude of such cases," said the legislator.

Through his Constituency Development Fund, Sh2 million has been allocated to urban agriculture to alleviate poverty and hunger by investing in horticulture, poultry rearing and fish farming in community demonstration plots.