Baby Beatrice was already ill and emaciated before tensions in Kenya reached the boiling point. Her mother is also ill. Mother and daughter are resting in a refugee centre in Uganda. Photo by Simon Peter Esaku/World Vision Ten-month-old Lucy has a heart disease. She was due for treatment at a Nairobi hospital on January 4. Her mother fled to a refugee centre in Uganda after violence erupted at home. Photo by Simon Peter Esaku/World Vision

While peace talks stall between political leaders in Kenya, children—the most vulnerable of those affected by post-election violence—continue to suffer, international aid organization World Vision said on Friday.

More than 60,000 children are among the estimated 250,000 people who have been displaced from their homes. Many of these children were already at risk even before the recent violence erupted. Twenty per cent of Kenya’s children are underweight for their age, according to United Nations statistics. As many as 163,000 children die here annually, the majority from preventable diseases. Those who survive do not have adequate access to water, food, health care and education. Now they face even greater, potentially life-threatening challenges.

World Vision aid workers in Nairobi report that children arriving at food distribution sites are hungry and traumatized by what they have recently experienced. Many are from Kibera – Nairobi’s sprawling shantytown that comprises Africa’s largest slum.

“Children there are already the most vulnerable in Kenyan society. Now they have been uprooted and they are sleeping in the open. Their access to medical facilities and clean water is even more limited. The death rate, which has always been among the highest in the country, will probably rise even higher,” said Wilfred Mlay, Vice President of Africa for World Vision. Read more...

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Photo Gallery

Margaret Wanjiru, 21, queues with her 3-month old daughter at an IDP camp in Nairobi. Margaret fled Kibera slum on December 31 after she was threatened with death. Photo by Simon Peter Esaku/World Vision		A distressed refugee mother sits watching her sleeping child in a classroom at Busia Integrated Primary School in Uganda. The pair fled there when violence erupted in their home country of Kenya. Photo by Simon Peter Esaku/World Vision
Baby Isaac was born in Kenya on January 4. Less than a week later, he was in a refugee camp in neighboring Uganda with his mother. Photo by Simon Peter Esaku/World Vision		Jane Naliaka sits with her four children, niece and nephew at the verandah of St. Jude Primary School in Malaba, Uganda. The school is being used as a refugee centre. Naliaka’s husband died in 2005 and her sister is also dead. She fled with the children to escape violence in Kenya. Photo by Simon Peter Esaku/World Vision