Ewan McGregor goes on air with an appeal for £20m to save starving children

SCOTTISH actor Ewan McGregor will today make an emotional television appeal for the British public to help the millions of children affected by the humanitarian crisis in East Africa.

The star, who is an ambassador for the children's charity Unicef, will explain that the area has been hit by war, failing harvests and the worst drought in 50 years, raising the risk of death and disease for the country's children.

"In just one refugee camp in Kenya, there are nearly half a million people in urgent need of food, water and basic healthcare," he is to tell viewers.

"The situation throughout the region is becoming more and more critical; the threat of starvation is very real."

The appeal will broadcast from this evening on ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky News.

Unicef urgently needs almost 20 million to provide life-saving supplies to weak and starving children across East Africa in the next three months alone.

More than two million children under the age of five in Somalia and parts of Kenya and Ethiopia are acutely malnourished, including almost 500,000 children who are facing the most immediate danger of starving to death.