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Shortly after dawn on a Tuesday morning last summer, raiders from the Borana tribe broke into a northern Kenya school in Turbi. With machetes and ak-47 assault rifles, they slaughtered 22 children and 50 other villagers, all members of the rival Gabra tribe. One of the few survivors was a severely injured three-year-old girl whose attacker failed to behead her.

This massacre resulted from ongoing rivalries now worsened by drought-stricken livestock herds on which both tribes depend. For five consecutive seasons, the winter rains have all but vanished in a large swath of eastern Africa, triggering violent competition for water, grazing land, and food. The extended drought has resulted in a 50 to 80 percent loss of livestock, mostly cattle. The declining herds of many rural families are below the minimum threshold to support life. Consequently, livestock raiding has become a huge regional problem, resulting in more violence.

The drought has severely impacted families with young children, causing some parents to marry off pre-teenage daughters they cannot feed. Parents may take young children out of school and put them to work.

The sprawling drought-hit area cuts across eastern Africa from Eritrea on the Horn of Africa to Tanzania, 1,400 miles south. An estimated 11 million are at risk of starvation. Some 2.9 million receive food aid now. Despite limited seasonal rains this past winter, drought conditions persist.

Patrick Webb, an international relief expert and nutrition professor at Tufts University, told Christianity Today that governments don't always follow through with their public commitments to relief aid. Christine Head with World Vision in Nairobi, Kenya, told CT, "Donors tend to wait and wait, and that puts a lot of people at risk." Christian groups, including World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, and Food for the Hungry, are all engaged in relief work in eastern Africa, hoping to avert a full-fledged crisis.

Sometimes the cards are stacked against the hungry, even after aid arrives. In Eritrea, aid experts note that the government is hoarding 100,000 tons of food aid, which will eventually spoil. "Food is a very valuable political commodity," one aid worker told CT. "Whoever has the food has power. Massive food supplies, such as the kind that often pour into these countries, are often used as political leverage by unscrupulous governments."

Within the past year, Eritrea has expelled without explanation more than eight international relief agencies. Analysts speculate Eritrea is withholding international food aid from at-risk groups, hoping to compel Western governments to pressure Ethiopia into resolving its long-standing border dispute with Eritrea.

For Christians, ministry during drought and famine can take deadly turns. After last year's Turbi massacre, someone shot and killed Luigi Locati, an Italian Roman Catholic bishop who had ministered 35 years in northern Kenya. Though the murder happened 300 miles from the massacre, Kenyan authorities labeled the death a related killing. They believed Locati's outreach to the Gabra tribe had put him in the crosshairs of the Borana.

Local church leaders have worked to reduce tribal tensions, with mixed success. Kenyan Fredrick Gache is a Pentecostal pastor. Talking with CT by cell phone from Kenya, Gache described the situation between tribes as "retaliatory war games."

Gache and Christians from 14 other groups formed the Marsabit Pastors Fellowship to work for peace between rival groups. These pastors work with government officials, national Christian leaders, and relief officials to distribute food aid fairly. They conduct workshops on reconciliation and sponsor peace talks.

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June 2006, Vol. 50, No. 6