The United Nations says at least nine million people in the Horn of Africa have been hit by the worst drought in six decades.

Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says the drought is one of the worst to strike East Africa since the 1950s and people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Byrs told reporters in Geneva that 3.2 million people each in Kenya and Ethiopia, 2.6 million in Somalia and 117,000 in Djibouti need aid.

The U.N. says child nutrition rates have reached emergency levels of 15 percent in some areas.

In the worst hit areas, they are more than twice the emergency level of 15 percent.