"Following five consecutively failed or poor seasons, vulnerable populations are running out of coping options," said an assessment report by the Kenya Food Security Steering Group, whose members include government ministries, United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organisations.

Speaking at the launch of an appeal for US $245 million in the capital, Nairobi, the minister of state for special programmes, John Munyes, said the districts hardest-hit by the drought were in the arid and semi-arid northern, northeastern and eastern regions.

"A total of 396,525 metric tonnes of additional food aid assistance, valued at US $221,536,211, will be required to avoid mass suffering for the next 12 months," the appeal document said. "In addition, there is need to support health, nutrition, water and sanitation and education sectors."

It noted that pastoralists' livelihoods across the country were severely threatened, as the very basis of their food security system – their livestock - were dying in unprecedented numbers due to lack of water and pasture.

The appeal said the food aid intervention would be carried out through general food distribution, food-for-work schemes, supplementary feeding programmes for pregnant and lactating mothers and children under age five, and expanded school feeding programmes.

It further noted that malnutrition rates had risen steeply in the country's northeast to between 18 percent and 30 percent, significantly higher than the UN World Health Organization threshold of 15 percent indicating a critical situation.

"Incidence of malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections are on the increase in some areas," it said.

"Water is scarce and schools are closing down due to lack of water," it added. "Children are dropping out from schools as families migrate or they are expected to take up other chores."

Further exacerbating the food security situation, the appeal said, was the "real likelihood" that the coming long rains - expected between February and June - would be well below normal, and could even fail in the eastern half of the country.

"Without an immediate expansion of the current emergency food and non-food aid operation, the humanitarian crisis and emergency relief requirements will deepen," it said. "The government of Kenya and its partners must act now to avoid a massive humanitarian catastrophe."

Munyes said drought had also hit neighbouring countries including Ethiopia, Somalia and Tanzania, making it increasingly difficult for Kenyans to find water and pasture in those areas.

"The response to the drought has therefore to consider a regional perspective to avoid large-scale population movements from areas where there is no response to areas where assistance is being provided," he added.

Meanwhile, the European Commission has allocated five million euros (US $6 million) to assist some 5.6 million drought-affected people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.

"Starvation threatens if we don't act quickly," Louis Michel, European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"[The funds] will be used immediately to provide urgently needed water, food and basic healthcare as well as to support the livestock that most people in the region rely upon," he added.

The commission has already allocated 73 million euros ($87.4 million) to drought-related interventions in response to the current crisis in the region. It provides relief assistance as well as support aimed at tackling the effects of the drought in the medium and longer term.