Hunger and drought are already affecting learning in some schools in Ganze, Kilifi.
Pupils are now keeping away from schools. They lack food and water.
Karimani Primary in Bamba ward is one of the worst-hit schools. The school has an enrolment of 350 pupils, but only 250 are attending classes.
Headteacher Christopher Jilani said many pupils attend classes half-day and rush back home to help their parents fetch water.
The water reservoirs at the school are all empty following scanty rainfall. Jilani said the situation is worsening as water pans are also drying up.
He urged the national government to reintroduce the school feeding programme to attract more learners back to class.
Ganze MP Teddy Mwambire, who led a groundbreaking of four classrooms at the school on Monday, said more than 200,000 people in the subcounty face starvation.
The matter has been made worse by stray elephants that have invaded the village and are scrambling for water in pans with domestic animals and residents.
Mwambire urged the government to reintroduce the school feeding programme and the livestock uptake programme to cushion pupils and herders respectively.
Dominic Sifa, a resident of Karimani village, said their children are now forced to help parents fetch water over long distances before going to school.
He called on the county government to dig large water pans that can hold enough water to last a drought period.
Rodgers Kombe, another resident, said their main economic activity is livestock keeping and subsistence agriculture that depends solely on rainfall and they are suffering because there has been no rain for the past two years.
Devolution CAS Gideon Mung’aro, while on a tour of Kilifi county, said government officers from various departments and those from non-state agencies were on the ground collecting data to ascertain the extent of the situation.
High-risk counties include Samburu, Marsabit, Mandera, Garissa, Turkana, Tana River, Kilifi, Kwale and Isiolo where the amount of rainfall was low or the rains came too late after the planting season.
-Edited by SKanyara
