The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to visit Copenhagen to view Emergency Distribution effort for East Africa

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit UNICEF’s emergency supply centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 2nd November to view the effort to distribute emergency food and medical supplies to East Africa, where severe food shortages are affecting more than 13 million people. The Duke and Duchess will be accompanied on the visit to the UNICEF centre by The Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark. Their Royal Highnesses together will seek to maintain global attention on the crisis in East Africa, an area well known to The Duke and Duchess, where the situation is getting worse. More areas in East Africa are expected to be declared as ‘in famine’ over the next few months.

Currently some 320,000 children in East Africa are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and are at imminent risk of death without immediate assistance. UNICEF’s emergency supply centre in Copenhagen is a worldwide coordination centre for nutrition and other emergency supplies reaching children in crisis around the world. Supplies being sent to East Africa include nutritional treatments for severely malnourished children, supplementary foods for their families, vaccines, water and emergency medical kits. UNICEF is the humanitarian lead agency for a number of areas, including nutrition and child protection. The agency is the main supplier of the high protein peanut paste that is a life-saving nutritional source for the most severely affected children, working with many other organisations to ensure that the supplies reach the children most in need. Elhadj As Sy, UNICEF’s Regional Chief of Eastern and Southern Africa said, “Right now, UNICEF, along with many other partners, is working tirelessly to ensure that children’s lives can be saved across East Africa. Every day children are being given food and water thanks to the huge generosity of the public all around the world. But, there is so much more to be done. As we speak, more than 320,000 children are in grave danger and need life-saving emergency supplies, like those being shipped and airlifted from our warehouse. “We need every single person to help us continue our work, so please donate today at www.eastafricacrisis.org."