The crisis has been brought on by a deadly combination of severe drought, with no rain in the region for two years, a huge spike in food prices and a brutal civil war in Somalia, where it is too dangerous for aid workers to operate.
Somalians are walking as far as 50 miles to reach the Dadaab complex in eastern Kenya, the largest refugee camp in the world. The trek can take weeks through punishing terrain, which is desolate except for the carcasses that litter the land.
A mother of six was forced to decide today whether to leave behind her daughter, who is simply too sick to travel, in order to save the rest of her family. Suffering from malnutrition, her daughter isn't strong enough to continue with their 30-day, 50-mile journey from Somalia into neighboring Kenya.
UNICEF has just airlifted five tonnes of food and medicine to children in Baidoa in southern Somalia.
The delivery is the first since the Islamist militant group Al Shabaab, which controls most of Somalia, agreed to let foreign relief agencies into the area.
UNICEF representative to Somalia, Rozanne Chorlton, is adamant no payments were made to Al Shabaab to let the aid through.
"We've been asked occasionally in different places but then we've explained what we do and they did not pursue the claims," she said.
An estimated 400,000 people are now in the overcrowded Dadaab refugee camp in neighbouring Kenya and thousands more are crossing each day into the country and into Ethiopia.
Speaking at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, UK aid secretary Andrew Mitchell said the situation is getting worse.
"Well there is no question this is an extremely grave crisis. The real question is whether the international community, by putting its shoulder to the wheel, can stop it turning into a catastrophe," he said.
"These levels of malnutrition we're seeing, particularly among children and mothers with very young children, [are] almost unprecedented.
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