The World Food Program (WFP) is expanding assistance in the Horn of Africa as levels of hunger soar after back-to-back droughts and the threat of famine looms, the U.N. food agency said Friday.

Since the start of the year, 9 million more people have slipped into severe food insecurity across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, leaving 22 million people struggling to find enough food to eat, WFP's regional office in Nairobi said in a statement.

David Beasley, WFP's executive director, who wrapped up his visit to drought-ravaged Somalia on Thursday, said that more than 7 million people – close to half the population – are acutely food insecure and 213,000 are already facing famine-like conditions.

Beasley visited the southern city of Baardheere and met with families, including malnourished children and their mothers, who were forced to leave their homes and travel long distances through conflict-wracked areas in search of humanitarian assistance.

"People here have been waiting years for rain – but they cannot wait any longer for life-saving food assistance. The world needs to act now to protect the most vulnerable communities from the threat of widespread famine in the Horn of Africa," Beasley said.

He added that "there is still no end in sight to this drought crisis, so we must get the resources needed to save lives and stop people plunging into catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation."

WFP also said on Friday that across the Horn of Africa, the drought is expected to continue in the coming months, with a fifth poor rainy season forecast later this year.

The U.N. organization said that it has focused all its available funds, including critical emergency funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, on scaling up life-saving assistance in areas worst hit by the drought.

WFP noted that it is targeting 8.5 million people across the Horn of Africa, up from 6.3 million at the start of the year in 2022.

Its assistance is in form of food and cash assistance to families and distributing fortified foods to women and young children to treat spiraling rates of malnutrition and prevent more people among some of the most vulnerable communities from slipping closer to famine.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in June that the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) region of Kenya experienced four back-to-back below-average rainy seasons, leading to the longest drought in at least 40 years and leaving at least 4.2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.