Save the Children warns that acute malnutrition among children in Uganda's Karamoja region (a semi-arid area in the country's northeast, home to roughly 1.6 million people) has worsened sharply, with the number of affected children rising from 122,100 to 154,200 since a June assessment — a figure projected to climb a further 25 percent by 2026. Around 38,000 of those children are suffering from, or at risk of, severe acute malnutrition requiring urgent medical care. The organisation attributes the crisis to El Niño-driven dry spells that have caused localised crop failures across the drought-prone region, mirroring broader food insecurity challenges in east Africa.