The United Nations warns that the famine in war-wracked Somalia is spreading and that 750,000 people could die in the next six months if international aid isn't increased.

In famine-struck East Africa a cow costs $1,000 these days. The Arab world, buffeted by political upheaval triggered in January in large part by rising food prices, is facing a new round of food shortages.

In strife-torn Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, 7 million people, one-third of the population, go hungry.

But the main humanitarian focus is in East Africa, where the catastrophe sweeping the region has been a long time coming. Aid agencies have been warning for years that a famine was approaching but governments did little to avert disaster.

These regions have been hit by the worst drought in six decades. Rainfall has been sparse over the last two years, causing widespread crop failures and depleting what food reserves there were.

Globally, food prices have soared in recent years, hitting poor countries reliant on imports amid burgeoning populations the hardest.

The price spiral was caused largely by crop shortfalls in the main grain-producing countries, such as the United States, Canada, Russia and Ukraine.

Much of this was due to bad weather, the result of climate change ruining crops. The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London observed recently that surging wheat and other commodity prices "are creating a global headache."

In 2010, the IISS reported in a recent analysis, "the stage was set when record spring rainfall in Canada, the world's second largest wheat exporter after the United States, cut that country's harvest by nearly a quarter.

"Then drought beset Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Bushfires across Russia slashed the yearly wheat harvest to approximately 60 million tonnes, down from 97 million tonnes in 2009."

In East Africa, the famine has created a triangle of torment across a swathe of land where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet. Parts of Uganda and Djibouti are also affected.

The World Food Program estimates that 12.4 million people need aid in the drought-hit regions. And that's probably just the beginning.

The United Nations says more than 3.2 million Somalis, nearly half the population, need food aid because of the drought that has been complicated by the violence that has plagued the country since 1991.

U.S. officials say more than 29,000 Somali children under the age of 5 have died in the last three months. Many more will do so unless international aid can reach them as outbreaks of measles and cholera strike down the hunger-weakened infants.

Some 500,000 people live in areas in the south controlled by the Islamist militants of al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaida. These are generally beyond the reach of relief agencies.

But even in areas where aid can be delivered, much of it is stolen by insurgents, local warlords, bandits or greedy merchants who sell it for vast profit.

"Corruption is a major part of the problem in Somalia," says Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst with the International Crisis Group in Brussels.

"This drought did not come out of nowhere but the government did not do anything to prepare for it. Instead they spent all their time fighting each other."

The Western-backed Transitional Federal Government, installed in December 2006, is riddled with corruption and political rivalry and is kept in power only by a 9,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force.

But it's little different than most governments in the region, which means their suffering citizens have to rely on the United Nations, World Foot Program and other relief organizations for survival.

Eritrea, a Red Sea nation of 5 million people, has also been badly hit. Satellite images indicate it's grappling with the same conditions affecting Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia, Eritrea's bitter rival.

Aid agencies say food shortages are worsening because of the drought, but the autocratic regime of President Isaias Afwerki, which faces international sanctions, refuses to recognize the crisis.

Refugees who managed to flee to neighboring Ethiopia say food prices have skyrocketed: a goat sells for more than $200, a cow for $1,000, prices few can afford.

Somalia remains at the center of the worsening crisis. The WFP says it cannot reach 2.2 million people in dire need of aid in the southern zones controlled by al-Shabaab.

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