The United Nations on Wednesday launched an appeal for 38.9 million dollars in aid for 120,000 people struck by a five year drought in the east African state of Djibouti.

United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said many people were unable to feed their families, leaving one fifth of the small country's under fives, or 25,000 children, severely malnourished.

"Successive years of drought have devastated the livelihoods of people in rural Djibouti," Amos added.

Four consecutive years of insufficient rainfall has led to large-scale hunger and killed off 70 percent of the country's cattle, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.