Simon Lauder reported this story on Friday, September 2, 2011 12:34:00

TANYA NOLAN: The United Nations has issued another warning about the famine across the Horn of Africa saying it's only set to worsen.



The international body estimates that more than 12 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti need aid.



In the past few weeks the number of refugees in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya has swelled from 400,000 to 420,000 and desperate families are still streaming across the border from war-ravaged Somalia.



Simon Lauder reports.



SIMON LAUDER: Rain isn't due over the Horn of Africa until October and the next harvest is months away.



On a visit to Mogadishu in Somalia the UN high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres has warned the famine will get worse before it gets better.



ANTONIO GUTTERES: It makes us very emotional is to feel that for 20 years these people have been suffering, suffering enormously.



Of course there is a large responsibility of Somalia's in the way things have happened. But let's also recognise that the international community has sometimes also been part of the problem and not part of the solution.



SIMON LAUDER: The Australian Government has contributed $80 million to the relief effort and the head of UNICEF Australia Norman Gillespie says individuals have also been generous donors.



NORMAN GILLESPIE: In UNICEF Australia we have raised $3 million. And we understand that some seven other million dollars has been raised by other agencies.



So people are responding and we are finding that people are indeed giving multiple donations because they understand this is not like a one-off tragedy, this is a slow intense burn.



SIMON LAUDER: Dr Gillespie says the UN has had more success getting relief supplies into war ravaged Somalia lately.



NORMAN GILLESPIE: With Al Shabaab moving out of Mogadishu there's been many more airlifts been able to get into that area.



So from UNICEF's point of view we are starting to move in food supplies in some scale. We have been involved in a huge vaccination of two and a half million children under 15 for measles because sadly what tends to occur is that more people die of disease than malnutrition in these famine situations as these camps and these great numbers of people come together.



SIMON LAUDER: Is there any way of knowing what the death rate is, how many people are dying because of this famine?



NORMAN GILLESPIE: There has been no official mortality count because it's very difficult as to even where you start from.



There is a figure floating around of 29,000 deaths of children but really we expect that to be a multiple of that, a great number indeed.



SIMON LAUDER: Given the increased delivery of aid into Somalia are there now fewer refugees coming south to Kenya?



NORMAN GILLESPIE: Sadly no. The refugee movement is still really quite intense and the camps are just getting bigger and bigger.



We are desperately trying to open up more stations to intervene in that, to really try and stop some of these really precarious journeys because so many children are dying on the way in these journeys.



I mean make no mistake, this summit has not peaked. You will see more regions being declared famine I am sure in the next month or two.



And the rains that are expected are again going to be less than normal so you're really not going to see any relief in terms of harvest until early 2012.



SIMON LAUDER: Oxfam worker Chee Chee Leung is in the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya where most people who flee Somalia end up. She says rations are being spread very thinly.



CHEE CHEE LEUNG: One person today told me that three children and three adults were having one meal a day and sharing half a kilo of rice. For breakfast they were having tea. For lunch they were having nothing.



SIMON LAUDER: And with 420,000 people there, that's tens of thousands more than there were just a few weeks ago. It sounds like people are still streaming in by the day?



CHEE CHEE LEUNG: That's right. The latest reports are there are still about 1000 people a day crossing over from Somalia into Dadaab.



SIMON LAUDER: With the camp already massively over capacity and getting worse every day, how is it coping?



CHEE CHEE LEUNG: There's massive numbers. The people here on the ground are doing the best they can with the resources that they have. But they really do need more assistance to get through the situation which is only going to get worse.



SIMON LAUDER: The World Meteorological Organisation says there's a 50 per cent chance the La Nina weather pattern which has contributed to the African drought will return again this year.



TANYA NOLAN: Simon Lauder with that report.