Community raises £180,000 for East Africa emergency appeal

Mr Anticoni said: “With their harvests decimated, millions of children are malnourished and in urgent need of food and water. Our community must continue to help people on the brink of starvation.”

WJR said farming communities had been hit the hardest by the drought and subsequent famine.

A spokesman said: “Farmers' incomes have been reduced because their livestock have died in the drought and they now have nothing to sell.

“In addition, the price of grains, like maize and wheat, have spiked because of food scarcity.

“As conditions have worsened, many of the farmers who previously led nomadic lives in rural areas are now settling in small villages, putting further pressure on precious resources like food and water.”

WJR humanitarian manager Mireille Flores, who is currently in Kenya, said: “It has been so humbling to see the difference the Jewish community’s help is making to people living in such desperate circumstances.

“The victims are dehydrated, hungry and depressed. They quite literally do not know where their next meal is coming from or whether their children will survive the night."