:00:14. > :00:18.Across East Africa, millions of people are struggling to survive.
:00:18. > :00:21.Tens of thousands are on the move, leaving their home and belongings
:00:21. > :00:24.in search of food, water and shelter. This is the worst drought
:00:24. > :00:30.in the region for as long as anyone can remember. The only hope for
:00:30. > :00:34.many is to get a refugee camp by any means possible.
:00:34. > :00:38.I wanted to know what it feels like to leave your home and walk for
:00:38. > :00:43.days in the baking sun with little to eat or drink. I travelled to
:00:43. > :00:48.north-east Kenya to meet children who have left everything behind to
:00:48. > :00:58.reach the Dadaab Camp. From here, it is 60 miles to Somalia where the
:00:58. > :01:00.
:01:00. > :01:03.drought led to a famine. It is dusty. We spotted the carcasses of
:01:03. > :01:07.dead animals and I have been told that it hasn't rained properly
:01:07. > :01:17.around here for three years. This drought is having a devastating
:01:17. > :01:22.
:01:22. > :01:25.effect on this part of Africa. This is the Dadaab Camp. The
:01:25. > :01:28.biggest refugee camp in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people
:01:28. > :01:33.have come here because they have nowhere else to go. The first thing
:01:33. > :01:38.that struck me, there were children everywhere with more arriving all
:01:39. > :01:42.the time. Mohamed is 13, but he looks about eight. Like many Somali
:01:42. > :01:49.children his growth has been stunted because of a lack of food.
:01:49. > :01:54.How long has it taken Mohamed to get here today?
:01:54. > :02:00.18 days, so more than two weeks. Mohamed is hungry and exhausted.
:02:00. > :02:04.His family walked for days and days across the desert to get here. His
:02:04. > :02:10.mum and dad are on their way. The reason he had to leave Somalia is
:02:10. > :02:15.because of the drought. His family's animals had died and he is
:02:15. > :02:19.waiting to get some food. Almost everyone here has made the
:02:19. > :02:23.same journey across the desert. Loads of them with stories like
:02:23. > :02:27.Mohamed's. This is the first place where everyone arrives. More than
:02:27. > :02:29.1,000 come here every day. More than half are children and I have I
:02:29. > :02:32.have been listening to their stories this morning. Many are
:02:32. > :02:36.saying they are hungry. They have spent two weeks getting here and
:02:36. > :02:41.this is the first place they can get some food.
:02:41. > :02:48.I was struck by how calm the whole place seemed. People were quietly
:02:48. > :02:54.waiting their turn. Here the new arrivals get the bare essentials,
:02:54. > :03:00.they get mats and blankets and pots and pans and food which lasts them
:03:00. > :03:05.for two weeks. They get beans, sugar, oil and
:03:05. > :03:10.flour. They get this, a pack of emergency biscuits. This contains
:03:10. > :03:14.vitamins and minerals. Outside the reception centre, I
:03:14. > :03:20.biferpd I bumped into Mohamed again. Not everyone is as lucky as Mohamed.
:03:20. > :03:27.Many are really weak and sick so everyone gets a medical check-up.
:03:27. > :03:37.The children will get the vaccinations and immunisations.
:03:37. > :03:40.They check for malnutrition. So status of some children.
:03:40. > :03:46.For some children the drought means they have gone for months without
:03:46. > :03:53.proper meals. They are They are starving. If
:03:53. > :03:57.these children weren't being fed high energy foods, they would die.
:03:57. > :04:00.The main problem here is... doctors here told me they have seen
:04:00. > :04:06.a huge increase in the numbers of starving children, five times more
:04:06. > :04:09.than usual. They are having to put up special tents to fit them all in.
:04:09. > :04:13.I felt really anxious about coming to the hospital today and seeing
:04:13. > :04:16.the children who were severely malnourish. Seeing some of them in
:04:16. > :04:19.there, they looked thin and I found it really difficult to look at them
:04:19. > :04:23.for more than a couple of minutes. They are in such a sad situation
:04:23. > :04:26.here, but I spoke to some of the doctors and they are saying they
:04:26. > :04:30.are doing all they can to help them recover.
:04:30. > :04:35.The problem for all the new arrivals is at the -- that the camp
:04:35. > :04:39.is full. It was built for 90,000 people and right now there are four
:04:39. > :04:43.times that number, 380,000. So once people are registered and and got
:04:43. > :04:49.some food, they come out here to the desert outside the main camp.
:04:49. > :04:52.There is no water. No toilets. There is rubbish everywhere. Even
:04:53. > :04:59.though children here have got nothing, they are amazingly
:04:59. > :05:02.friendly. This is what happens the minute the
:05:02. > :05:10.camera comes out. Every wants to see what we are getting up to and
:05:10. > :05:17.when I try and talk to some of them, they get a bit shy.
:05:17. > :05:24.One of the kids kids who was up for telling me his story was Hussain.
:05:24. > :05:26.TRANSLATION: Where I was living, I have no food and I have to walk
:05:27. > :05:29.three kilometres to get water. But there is never enough. I don't go
:05:29. > :05:33.to school. During the day, it is really hot and windy and during the
:05:33. > :05:37.night night it is really cold. I get scared at night because I can
:05:37. > :05:43.hear hyenas all around. He showed me where he was living. I
:05:43. > :05:47.couldn't believe how flimsy his tent was. It was a world away from
:05:47. > :05:51.where I was based. I am staying at a secure compound
:05:51. > :05:54.which is a 20 minute drive from where the refugees are. Not far
:05:54. > :05:58.from here, we have got running water, somewhere to go to the
:05:58. > :06:03.toilet, but every night when I'm trying to get to sleep, I'm
:06:03. > :06:09.thinking about the children in the Dadaab Camp who have got nothing.
:06:09. > :06:11.When it is windy, it can be scary and it is hard for me to imagine
:06:11. > :06:16.what they are going through. Droughts aren't new in this part of
:06:16. > :06:18.Africa. They have been recorded for hundreds of years. Weather here can
:06:18. > :06:28.be inconsistent and it is not unusual for rains to fail.
:06:28. > :06:33.Sometimes for a couple of years in a row.
:06:33. > :06:37.There have been wars. That makes it harder for people when drought
:06:37. > :06:41.comes. Almost all the people arriving come from Somalia. Years
:06:41. > :06:44.of fighting here made it one of the most dangerous places on earth,
:06:44. > :06:50.lots of different groups are fighting for control of the country.
:06:50. > :06:56.What is meant to be the official Government, controls only a few
:06:56. > :06:59.streets in the capital. Gun battles happen daily. Hardly any children
:06:59. > :07:04.get to school and the rubbish in the street hasn't been cleared away
:07:04. > :07:07.for 20 years. Off the coast, pirates attack ships and take
:07:08. > :07:11.foreigners hostage. All this makes it really hard to build a life in
:07:11. > :07:14.Somalia, most people have very little so when the rains don't come
:07:14. > :07:24.and their crops fail and animals die, they have to leave their homes
:07:24. > :07:26.
:07:26. > :07:31.We're staying with the charity at a compound which is surrounded by
:07:31. > :07:35.security and barbed wire. Over here, we have the tents that were put up
:07:35. > :07:37.for the journalists, who have come out here to cover the story. Over
:07:37. > :07:40.here we have the kitchen and somewhere to eat. There is a TV
:07:41. > :07:45.room for the staff to relax in the evening and this is where we meet
:07:45. > :07:48.our driver every morning who takes us into the centre of the refugee
:07:48. > :07:52.camps. This camp was set-up 20 years ago,
:07:52. > :07:58.when thousands of refugees started pouring into Kenya to escape escape
:07:58. > :08:03.the fighting and Somalia. I had no idea had -- it had been here for so
:08:03. > :08:06.long. I was surprised to find out that it hasn't been made up of
:08:06. > :08:11.ragged tents. Parts of it are like a town. It is busy. There are
:08:11. > :08:14.people out and about buying things, shops, a place where you can buy
:08:14. > :08:16.mobile phone credit and a dentist. It is clear this is a community
:08:16. > :08:21.that has developed over the last 20 years.
:08:22. > :08:29.The kids here even follow premiership football. Chelsea,
:08:29. > :08:33.Arsenal, Man United, anyone for Spurs? Many of the children I met
:08:33. > :08:37.in this bit of the camp were born here, but one of the strange things
:08:37. > :08:41.about growing up in a refugee camp is that it is really difficult to
:08:41. > :08:45.leave. It is too dangerous to go back to Somalia and the Kenyan
:08:46. > :08:49.Government wants to keep all the refugees in one place. Everyone we
:08:49. > :08:59.met wanted to leave this camp and move to Europe or America, but only
:08:59. > :09:06.
:09:06. > :09:09.a tiny number ever get that chance.. We like. We like. Hi guys.
:09:09. > :09:13.Around half of the children in the camps go to school and this is one
:09:13. > :09:17.of the typical schools that we've come to today. There is about 2,000
:09:17. > :09:24.students here aged between five and 19 years old and they stick to the
:09:24. > :09:31.Kenyan national curriculum. They learn Swahili, maths and science
:09:31. > :09:35.and they have given us a fantastic reception this morning.
:09:35. > :09:39.There are between 100 and 500 children in each class. They have
:09:39. > :09:42.run out of classrooms here and some of the lessons have to be taught
:09:42. > :09:46.outside. The headmaster told me that this
:09:46. > :09:51.morning they had to accept 24 new kids who were escaping the drought
:09:51. > :10:00.and you are having to accept more kids every day? Yes, every day new
:10:00. > :10:04.arrivals. Every day. 60 a day. One of the children who had just
:10:04. > :10:07.arrived was Hussain who fled Somalia. It was his first day and
:10:07. > :10:14.the first time he ever been to school.
:10:14. > :10:21.TRANSLATION: My parents died before I left Somalia. I left because of
:10:21. > :10:26.the drought. I sleep in the open. I can't get enough food. Life is very
:10:26. > :10:29.hard here. But it is better than before. I asked Hussain what he
:10:29. > :10:33.wanted to be when he grew up. He told me he couldn't think that far
:10:33. > :10:39.ahead and at the moment all he wanted was to get a proper
:10:39. > :10:43.education. Hussain had an amazingly tough tough childhood, but many
:10:43. > :10:48.Somali children have it even worse. The United Nationss declared famine
:10:48. > :10:51.in parts of Somalia, that means that one in three children are
:10:51. > :10:57.severely malnourished, many of them are likely to get and it is hard to
:10:57. > :11:00.get help to them. Much of the country is controlled by an
:11:00. > :11:03.extremist group who have links to Al-Qaeda. They don't like western
:11:03. > :11:08.charities and are trying to stop food getting to the people who need
:11:08. > :11:12.it. In camps, charity and aid play ang important role, running things
:11:12. > :11:19.and trying to provide enough food, water, hospitals and schools.
:11:19. > :11:24.But I found out during my trip that refugees are helping each other too.
:11:24. > :11:26.Religious leaders here are giving out, food and clothes and it it is
:11:26. > :11:30.stuff that has been dominated by the refugees who live here that
:11:30. > :11:34.don't have much. They are giving it to some of the new arrivals who
:11:34. > :11:38.have nothing. Over the years, pictures of
:11:38. > :11:43.children caught up in wars and drought in Africa have become
:11:43. > :11:46.familiar sights on our TV screens. But nothing can can prepare you for
:11:46. > :11:49.the moment when you see a child who has lost his parents, or when you
:11:49. > :11:53.meet am family who has been forced to leave their homes and walk for
:11:53. > :11:57.days in the hope of finding food and water. I have been inspired by