Africa drought: special report

Failure to heed early warning signs of drought led to tens of thousands of deaths in East Africa, says a report by Oxfam and Save the Children.

Heavy rains in Mogadishu have swept away makeshift camps housing people fleeing from famine. Channel 4 News hears from a charity worker who met a woman whose daughter was lost in the deluge.

Two women working for the aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres at the world’s biggest refugee camp, Dadaab, are kidnapped by gunmen.

The UN reveals famine has spread to three quarters of Somalia, threatening 750,000 people with imminent starvation. Islamic Relief in the UK tells Channel 4 News the situation is now “catastrophic”.

The Disasters Emergency Committee tells Channel 4 News that just over a quarter of money it has raised towards the Horn of Africa Appeal is going to Somalia, the epicentre of the drought crisis.

In the first interview with a western news organisation since the UN declared famine in Somalia, a spokesman for the al-Shabaab Islamist group tells Channel 4 News there is no famine, only drought.

More than one million children have been displaced by the disaster in east Africa, and one charity tells Channel 4 News the situation in Somalia is “definitely getting worse”.

The British Somali journalist Jamal Osman experiences for himself just a little of the arduous trek being endured by thousands of starving Somalis making their way to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

The UN’s food agency is set to hold emergency talks in Rome to urge donor countries for an extra $1.6bn in aid, amid the worst drought in east Africa for 60 years.

As ministers meet in Rome to discuss how to get aid to the drought-hit Horn of Africa region, an aid worker in Somalia tells Channel 4 News they should “stop talking and act now” or children will die.

Our Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman travels into Mogadishu, to witness thousands of refugees who have risked everything crossing conflict zones to escape famine in the countryside.

The US gives $28 million in aid but says the money won’t be used in rebel-held famine regions, unless it receives assurances from militants. Channel 4 News talks to the head of the UN in Somalia.

Tens of thousands of people have already died in Somalia as the UN declares an official famine. A key figure leading the African Union’s efforts tells Channel 4 News “we’ll be burying children soon”.

A tearful Jerry Rawlings, Ghana’s former president, tells Jon Snow that “We’ll be burying lots of children soon” unless aid money and medical supplies are received to alleviate the Somalia famine.

A £52.25m emergency aid package is being put together to help millions of starving people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya hit by Africa’s worst drought in 50 years.