Ibro Bekeri Yusef feeds therapeutic milk to his severely malnourished five-year-old daughter Khesna, at the UNICEF-supported feeding unit of Bissidimo Hospital in East Harerghe Zone of Oromia Region. [UNICEF/KENA00397/Shehzad Noorani]

(UNICEF) – When five-year-old Khesna Ibro arrived in her father’s arms at Bissidimo Hospital in Ethiopia’s Oromia Region, she was weak and glassy-eyed from acute malnutrition. Her father, Ibro Bekeri Yusef, had carried the young girl for a full day to get from his small farm to the UNICEF-supported feeding unit at the hospital. As soon as they arrived, nutrition workers started Khesna on a feeding program to help her body recover from the shock of malnutrition.

Soon, Mr. Ibro and Khesna were sitting in the hospital’s courtyard, where he gently gave her small sips of therapeutic milk from a bright orange cup. This nutrient-rich milk is often the first food given to children as severely malnourished as Khesna (in small doses, eight times a day) because it helps condition their bodies to digest food again. At first, Khesna’s system was unable to cope with even a little milk, and she threw it back up. Slowly but surely, though, her body would begin to adjust.

As I’ve written before, the global food crisis has hit Ethiopia incredibly hard. UNICEF estimates that over 100,000 of the country’s children are severely malnourished. Khesna’s father, Ibro Bekeri Yusef, was deeply worried about his six other children. “My other children are also suffering,” he said. “I used to live well with the income I earned. But now the price of grain has gone up. We can’t afford to buy sorghum… We have no water.”

Packages of Plumpy’nut—high-protein therapeutic food.

In Ethiopia, UNICEF is the main provider of ready-to-use therapeutic foods like Plumpy’nut, the high-protein peanut paste we write a lot about here on Fieldnotes. UNICEF and its partners—including other UN agencies and non-governmental organizations—are working closely with the Government of Ethiopia to continue to respond to the emergency.

But the problem is huge: UNICEF estimates it will require as much as 1,100 tons of ready-to-use therapeutic food per month to stave off Ethiopia’s nutrition crisis. That means Khesna is one of the lucky ones. At Bissidimo Hospital she received treatment that would return her to health in a few weeks. As the food shortage continues, however, UNICEF will need a lot of help from donors to save the lives of tens of thousands of children like Khesna.

Less than $23 can buy nearly 50 liters of therapeutic milk to save children like Khesna. 50 liters! That’s many, many children pulled back from the brink of starvation. You can buy therapeutic milk and other emergency nutritional foods for kids right here.