Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 23:32:52 +0100
Kenya's Turkana region brought to the brink of humanitarian crisis by
drought
NGOs warn that effects of prolonged dry spell combined with a short, belated
rainy season could cause widespread hunger
* Sam Jones <http://www.theguardian.com/profile/samjones>
* <http://www.theguardian.com/> theguardian.com, Wednesday 26 March
2014 12.30 GMT
Aid workers are warning of a looming humanitarian crisis in north-west
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/kenya> Kenya, where a year-long drought
and the late arrival of the rainy season have left more than 300,000 people
in desperate need of food and water.
According to the NGO <http://practicalaction.org/> Practical Action, the
drought has forced some people in the Turkana region to eat roots, berries
and stray dogs to stay alive, as well as prompting 30,000 pastoralists to
drive their cattle into neighbouring Uganda.
It is predicted that the long rains, already three weeks late, will be
lighter than usual when they finally fall, raising the prospect of
widespread hunger.
Sam Olwilly, who leads Practical Action's Lodwar team, said that while the
Kenyan government and a few NGOs had begun to distribute aid, more needed to
be done.
"At the moment, people have been undergoing a lot of starvation and
livestock have migrated to Uganda, which is a normal practice whenever
there's drought," he said. "The critical indicators suggest that the drought
is expected to worsen if the long rains fail. The forecast already indicates
that the long rains are going to be subnormal, so unless something is done
urgently, people need to prepare just in case of a humanitarian crisis."
Olwilly said that while the government's intervention had succeeded in
partially arresting the crisis, the next four to eight weeks would be
critical.
"The most important resources are water and food, so we need to make sure
water facilities are working and get water to people - and also make sure we
support the distribution of relief and the supplementary feeding and medical
care of livestock," he said.
"Most importantly, we need to support the mothers and children, because many
times they are left behind when the pastoralists move to Uganda, and they
suffer the most."
Last year, the
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/sep/11/kenya-water-disco
very-drought-relief> discovery in Turkana of two vast underground aquifers -
storing more than 200bn cubic metres of water between them - raised hopes of
vastly improved water access in the semi-desert region, which is home to
around a million people.
Practical Action's Kenya director, Grace Mukasa, said that while
solar-powered pumps installed by the charity to draw water from the
underground reservoirs have helped ease the situation, the organisation
could not reach all areas of Turkana.
"Already, 30,000 pastoralists have migrated with their herds over the
border, saving lives and livestock worth millions of pounds in the process,"
she said.
"This, of course, means that men of working age have been forced to leave
their families and smaller livestock, such as goats. In many communities in
which we work only women and children remain, using the solar-powered water
pumps we have installed as they battle desperately to survive as their goats
die from starvation."
Figures from the
<http://www.kenyafoodsecurity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&
id=71&Itemid=58> Kenya Food Security Steering Group suggest that the
country's acutely food insecure population increased from 850,000 to 1.3
million between August 2013 and February 2014, with the most vulnerable
households in north-eastern pastoral areas.
The
<http://www.fews.net/east-africa/kenia/food-security-outlook-update/tue-2014
-03-18> Famine Early Warning Systems Network estimates that more than 34% of
children under five are at risk of malnutrition in parts of Turkana, up from
a five-year average of 21%.
The
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/18/east-africa-drought-disaster-r
eport> drought that afflicted east Africa three years ago affected some 13m
people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, and claimed as many as 100,000 lives.
According to figures compiled by the UK's Department for International
Development, more than half of those who died were children under the age of
five.
A
<http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/a-dangerous-delay-the-cost
-of-late-response-to-early-warnings-in-the-2011-droug-203389> report
published by Save the Children and Oxfam claimed that although drought
sparked the east <http://www.theguardian.com/world/africa> Africa crisis,
human factors enabled it to become a disaster.
It concluded: "A culture of risk aversion caused a six-month delay in the
large-scale aid effort because humanitarian agencies and national
governments were too slow to scale up their response to the crisis, and many
donors wanted proof of a humanitarian catastrophe before acting to prevent
one."
MDG : Drought in Turkana, Kenya : A Turkana woman scoops water from a dry
river bed
A woman scoops water from a dry river bed in the drought-stricken Turkana
region, where a humanitarian crisis is looming. Photograph: Marco
Longari/AFP/Getty Images
(image/jpeg attachment: image001.jpg)