Our journey to Bargoni village in Lamu District, about took us seven agonising hours.

Buffalo, warthogs, dik diks and baboons occasionally darted across the battered murram road from the lush vegetation on either side.

But before we reached our destination, 370 kilometres north of Mombasa, the skies opened and bucketfuls of rain began to fall.

As we pulled up at the village, some grass-thatch huts came crumbling down, the downpour seemingly too heavy for them.

We decided to take shelter at one of the nearby huts as dozens of emaciated villagers mobbed us, some shoving their empty baskets at us.

"Have you brought us food because some of us are almost starving to death?" one of them asked.

He then pleaded with us to accompany him to one of the neighbouring houses.

In the house, an elderly man lay on tattered bedclothes, groaning. His eyes had sunk deep into their sockets and he could barely move his limbs.

Emaciated

At first we thought he had been struck by a bout of malaria but as the villagers lifted him up and supported him to a seated position, we learnt that the aged man was ravaged by hunger.

The emaciated Mzee Shore Titii had difficulties narrating his ordeal.

The 90-year-old man told us that he had been lying in bed with excruciating hunger pain - he had not eaten for three days.

"It is three days now that I have not eaten anything save for porridge made from mkarabwaka tree bark, which is not nutritious.

"Unless the Government brings me relief food I do not think I will last long," the old man said as his empty belly rumbled.

Mr Titii said the area was experiencing severe famine because of drought that started in 2006.

"For the past two years we have harvested nothing as our crops were wiped out by drought.

"Even water is a rare commodity in the village as wells dried up a long time ago," he said weakly.

"Do not be misled by the lush vegetation you see around as this is a result of the rains which fell a week ago.

"The reality is that the soil has been bare for long and food has been hard to come by," he said before he was taken back to bed.

Two sisters

We covered a few steps to another hut and stumbled upon two sisters who are blind. They were also on their beds, incapacitated by hunger.

Their ribs protruded and their feeble hands trembled due to loss of muscle and strength.

The elderly pair, Khadija and Fatuma Iju, explained with much pain that they could not climb out of bed independently. They too had not eaten for three days.

Said Fatuma: "We can no longer lift our limbs from our beds because of chronic hunger. In this state, we will not live much longer unless somebody somewhere urgently brings us something to eat."

"We were hoping that the Government will bring us relief supplies to save us from the jaws of hunger but several months down the line we have not seen any intervention. Are they waiting for us to die before they act ?" the blind sisters posed.

Ms Abale Machaka collapsed thrice due to lack of strength on her way to plant crops in her tiny shamba. She had not had anything to eat for two days.

"In order to beat the famine, I felt the urge to go and plant some crops in my small farm but I could not make it since I fell to the ground thrice. Hunger has eaten away all my energy. I can now smell death," she said.

Another villager, Mr Doza Diza, said for the past one week he had been surviving on mkarabwaka tree stem.

Mr Diza said he cuts the stem into pieces, which he later dries in the sun for seven days. Then he grinds the dry pieces of stem into powder and uses it to either prepare some sort of ugali or porridge. He eats this to avert starvation.

"It is our tradition that whenever we are faced with a chronic shortage of food we resort to feeding on mkarabwaka.

"Though it is not nutritious, it can make you see another day," the grim-faced villager said.

Other villagers said they had resorted to eating wild fruits and various types of roots, some quite bitter, so as to prolong their days on earth.

As we combed the village from one corner to the other, the story was the same: Villagers will soon succumb to hunger if the Government does not come to their aid urgently.

Bargoni assistant-chief Salim Abuli said that more than 1,000 people in his sub-location were staring death in the face because of acute shortage of food.

The last time they received Government relief food was last December.

"Villagers' lives here are hanging by a thread as the famine is almost getting out of hand.

"Unless they are urgently given relief food the chance of their survival is slim," Mr Abuli said:

The assistant chief said the residents, who survive on primitive cultivation, were unable to harvest anything last year because the crops were scorched by the excessive heat. Their granaries are therefore empty.

Urgent supplies

Lamu district commissioner Charles Muathe confirmed that in some of the areas affected by famine, the last time the Government supplied relief food was between December last year and January this year.

He said that currently 25,000 Lamu residents are severely affected by famine and require urgent relief supplies.

But Mr Muathe said the Government had intervened, adding that last week it brought in 1,000 bags of maize and 600 bags of beans which were being distributed to the affected areas.

The DC said some Lamu businessmen had supplemented the Government's efforts by donating 11 tonnes of assorted foodstuff, including rice, wheat flour, maize meal and sugar.

Avert starvation

"It is true that the famine in Lamu is worrying as 25,000 residents are affected. Owing to lack of food, some villagers consumed sorghum seeds they had been given by the Government for planting this season.

"Some of them fell sick and had to be taken to hospital in critical condition. Luckily there was no one died. The villagers had been told not to eat the seeds but they consumed them to avert starvation," said Mr Muathe.