http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/ethiopia-drought-150905084538285.html
Millions at risk as severe drought hits Ethiopia
Ethiopia says it is managing crisis though UN says number in need
has increased by more than 55 percent this year.
Around 4.5 million Ethiopians could be in need of food aid because of a
drought in the country, the UN has said.
Hardest-hit areas are Ethiopia's eastern Afar and southern Somali
regions, while pastures and water resources are also unusually low in
central and eastern Oromo region, and northern Tigray and Amhara districts.
Reacting to the UN's claims that the number in need had increased by
more than 55 percent this year, Alemayew Berhanu, spokesman for Ministry
of Agriculture, told Al Jazeera that Ethiopia had "enough surplus food
at emergency depots and we're distributing it".
"When we were informed about the problem, the federal government and the
regional state authorities started an outreach programme for the
affected people," he said.
"When we were informed about the problem, the federal government and the
regional state authorities started an outreach programme for the
affected people," he said.
In August, the Ethiopian government said that it had allocated $35m to
deal with the crisis that has been blamed on El Niņo, a warm ocean
current that develops between Indonesia and Peru. TheUN says
<
http://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/sharp-rise-hungry-ethiopians-needing-aid-un>it
needs $230m by the end of the year to attend to the crisis.
"The absence of rains means that the crops don't grow, the grass doesn't
grow and people can't feed their animals," David Del Conte, UNOCHA'S
chief in Ethiopia, said.
One farmer in the town of Zway told Al Jazeera that he was selling
personal belongings to stay alive.
"There is nothing we can do. We don't have enough crops to provide for
our families. We are having to sell our cattle to buy food but the
cattle are sick because they don't have enough to eat," Balcha, who has
a family of nine, and grows corn and wheat, said.
The onset of El Niņo means the spatial distribution of rainfall from
June to September has being very low. According to the UN children's
agency (UNICEF), the El Niņo weather pattern in 2015 is being seen as
the strongest of the last 20 years.
Experts say it could be a major problem for the country's economy, as
agriculture generates about half of the country's income.
Climate shocks are common in Ethiopia and often lead to poor or failed
harvests which result in high levels of acute food insecurity.
Approximately 44 percent of children under 5 years of age in Ethiopia
are severely chronically malnourished, or stunted, and nearly 28 percent
are underweight, according to the CIA World Factbook.
UNICEF says that about 264,515 children will require treatment for acute
severe malnutrition in 2015 while 111,076 children were treated for
severe acute malnutrition between January and May 2015.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Millions at risk as severe drought hits Ethiopia - Shared via
Al Jazeera English app
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2015 08:02:10 -0500
From: emmanuelt40 at gmail dot com
To: dehai news <dehai-news_at_dehai.org>
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/ethiopia-drought-150905084538285.html - Share via Al Jazeera for iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
Received on Sat Sep 05 2015 - 20:10:08 EDT