Only 20 percent of an emergency 426-million-dollar (348-million-euro) appeal for 15 million drought-affected people in the region has yet been met, the envoy said as a British charity warned the entire relief operation was at risk.

"It is a silent tsunami," Kjell Magne Bondevik, the UN Special Humanitarian Envoy for the Horn of Africa, said in southern Somalia, one of the worst-affected areas, where more than two million face starvation.

"That is why the public awareness is not so high -- the drought has had a gradual, terrible impact where the tsunami (that hit southeast Asia in December 2004) was sudden and dramatic," he told reporters after touring relief operations here.

Along with Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia have been badly hit by the drought. Burundi and Tanzania are also affected and of the total 15 million people in need, about eight million require emergency assistance.

"In general, we are still in a very critical situation," Bondevik said, lamenting that recent rains, which have caused flooding in parts of east Africa, were "too little, too late" to halt the crisis.

"But with proper funding, it is still possible to avoid a catastrophe," Bondevik said, adding that poor donor response to the aid appeal was of deep concern.

"I am a bit worried ... Maybe the donor community is feeling a bit tired. They say 'oh, the Horn of Africa again'," he said.

While the United Nations has funds to cover at least some of the shortfall, Bondevik warned that it weas money that would have to be diverted from medium- to long-term recovery projects.

Meanwhile, the British charity Oxfam International warned that the lack of funding was disrupting recovery efforts and throwing millions of lives into danger.

"Emergency relief is needed now and more of it," it said in a statement released in Nairobi. "Donors are right to make this the first priority, but there needs to be a plan to help rebuild lives as well as save them.

"We risk getting into a pernicious cycle where money for long-term recovery is being diverted to fund emergency relief," it said. "If long-term projects are raided every time we face a crisis, the region will never progress.

"Instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, additional funds should be made available now to support both strands," it said.

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