Nearly 150M African children gripped by poverty, climate disaster

More than 150 million children across East and Southern Africa are gripped by grinding poverty and climate disaster, a report released Thursday showed.

South Sudan topped the list of countries in East and Southern Africa most likely to face the double threat, with 87% of the country’s children affected, followed by Mozambique with 80% and Madagascar 73%, according to the report by charity organization Save the Children titled “Generation Hope: 2.4 billion reasons to end the global climate and inequality crisis.”

If the climate and inequality crisis is not addressed with urgency, the frequency and severity of humanitarian and cost of living crises could soar, Save the Children warned.

Yvonne Arunga, the country manager for Save the Children Kenya and Madagascar, said the “climate emergency and inequality cannot be dealt with in isolation from each other because they are intertwined.”

“Crises like these push people even deeper into grinding poverty and leave millions of people even more vulnerable to the next flood or drought.”

At least 16.3 million children in Kenya, or 67% of the country's children, are living with the dual impacts of poverty and the climate emergency.