Hunger Threat to East Africans Grows by Millions
Date: 19-Jan-06
Country: KENYA
Author: Nita Bhalla
Kenya, Ethiopia and Burundi were three of the latest countries to report growing numbers at risk from dwindling food stocks and the dry weather that has made crop cultivation and caring for livestock nearly impossible.
The east African countries of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Tanzania and Burundi face a worsening drought in what aid agencies say could be "a humanitarian catastrophe". The WFP says more than five million people need food aid there.
Kenya's minister for emergency operations John Munyes said on Wednesday that current assessments indicated the number of people facing hunger in his country has surged up to four million compared with the 2.5 million estimated in December.
President Mwai Kibaki has already declared the drought a national disaster and appealed for $150 million in aid. Munyes said the additional number of people in need meant that Kenya required about $270 million in emergency donor aid.
"Although we are still doing some assessments, it appears as though many more people are being affected by this drought than we had imagined," Munyes said.
He said 37 of Kenya's 74 districts have already been affected by drought, including central and western parts of the country, which traditionally have secure food supplies.
More than a million people in Ethiopia's eastern region of Ogaden, which borders Somalia, also face possible famine, officials said.
"The effect is already very frightening," Mohammed Sheik Aden, Assistant Project Officer for Early Warning and Disaster Preparedness told reporters who visited the region this week.
"Unless the international donor community intervenes as early as possible the situation could turn into a catastrophe."
Mohammed said waterholes had dried up and pastures were exhausted, forcing thousands of people who depend on their livestock for survival to migrate.
Abdi Mohammed Hamud, a pastoralist from Kelafo, said livestock in the district have begun to die.
"I had 150 cattle some two months ago, but today I have only 60 and more are going to die unless a miracle happens," he said.
Mohammed said that the current drought evoked memories of the devastating 1999-2000 famine which killed 98,000 people.
He said over a thousand children whose parents could not provide them with food had dropped out of school in Gode district alone while eight schools had closed.
Hospitals in Gode and Danan, have reported worsening malnutrition among children under five years of age and a measles outbreak had been reported in Degghabour district.
In Burundi a governor in the northeastern part of the country said at least 120 people had died since November due to drought. The federal government and aid agencies could not confirm the deaths but said that thousands were fleeing to neighbouring countries, like Tanzania, to escape hunger.
"These figures were provided by the provincial board of agriculture and confirmed by local leaders who said 120 people died due to hunger," the Governor of Muyinga, Mouhamed Feruzi, told local radio.
WFP information assistant Isidore Nteturuye said many people in Burundi were dying because they lacked the money to buy food or pay for medical care when they became ill.
(Addtional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Ethiopia and Patrick Nduwimana)
