Sheer desperation has driven hundreds of thousands of Somalis from their homes in the south of the country, where famine is on the march. More than fifteen thousand people have come to Mogadishu since the beginning of July.

At a camp for the displaced they wait for UNICEF supplies—which will mean the difference between life and death. UNICEF is providing high energy biscuits, mosquito nets and plastic sheeting to nearly six thousand families at the Hodan displacement camp.

The camp, with its hastily constructed shelters, is just a small part of a growing emergency in the Horn of Africa where an estimated half a million children could die from malnutrition.

As the situation rapidly deteriorates, UNICEF is racing to get supplies to those in need. At Nairobi airport supplies arrive, bound for southern Somalia, Ethiopia and parts of northern Kenya that are also in the grip of drought, high food prices and crop failure.

UNICEF director of supply division Shanelle Hall said: "It's huge drought levels. There hasn't been such drought in 20 years so the quantities that we need to bring in are really big. In terms of supplemental and therapeutic food its unprecedented quantities for UNICEF."

Since the beginning of July, UNICEF has delivered 1,300 metric tons of life saving supplies to some of the hardest hit areas in southern Somalia—enough to treat 66,000 malnourished children.