Kenya ? The United Nations appealed for $426 million to help victims of drought in the Horn of Africa, where more than 40 percent of people are undernourished and thousands have died because of complications from hunger.

Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, launched the appeal on Friday to help 8 million people at severe risk of starvation in Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti.

“Millions of people are threatened with starvation following the recent severe drought,” he said. He estimated that “thousands, perhaps tens of thousands” had died already of complications from hunger.

“We don’t know, because these children dying of diarrhea, these women dying from preventable diseases, these elderly dying too early, die because they have been weakened by malnutrition, they have been weakened by lack of water, lack of sanitation and preventable disease kills them at intolerable levels,” Egeland said.

Nomadic communities that depend on livestock for their survival have seen more than 80 percent of their animals die because of lack of water or fodder. Sporadic rains have been reported in the region, but experts said it was unlikely to be enough to reverse the drought and comes too late for most nomadic families.