From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed Aug 26 2009 - 08:39:06 EDT
Starvation ravages East Africa
MALKHADIR MUHUMED/ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO
A Somali child eats his meagre meal at the U.N. registration center in
Dagahaley refugee camp in Daadab, northern Kenya on June 25, 2009.
War in Somalia, drought in neighbouring Kenya spawn region's worst
food crisis in decades
Aug 26, 2009 04:30 AM
Olivia Ward
FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER
A food crisis has swept through war-torn Somalia and neighbouring
Kenya, forcing millions of people to seek aid, and the World Food
Program to call for emergency funds to fill a deepening financial gap.
"It's the same throughout the region," said Oxfam Canada humanitarian
officer Robyn Baron in an interview from Kenya. "Rains have failed,
crops are sparse and animals are dying."
Yesterday, the UN's Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit said
more than half of Somalia's 7.5 million people need humanitarian aid
and one in five children is malnourished.
The country has been struck by a double blow from escalating hunger
and civil war, with violent lawlessness making it difficult for relief
to reach vulnerable people. An extreme Islamist faction, al-Shabab, is
battling for control against a more moderate government, and heavily
armed clans have joined in on both sides.
The United Nations unit said Somalia, which has been labelled a failed
state, is facing its worst humanitarian crisis in almost two decades.
The fighting has forced many people off their land, and the number of
refugees has risen by more than 40 per cent since January. Agriculture
has virtually collapsed, leaving more people dependent on aid.
But in neighbouring Kenya, which is not at war, both rural and urban
dwellers are going hungry as drought devastates the land and food
prices spike in local markets.
They have suffered at least three consecutive droughts, and conditions
are predicted to get worse over the coming months. Crops of maize, a
staple of the diet, are expected to shrink by 28 per cent from the
yearly average.
The drought has prompted an appeal by the food agency for more than
$230 million (U.S.) to provide emergency funds over the next six
months for nearly 4 million Kenyans who cannot produce, or afford,
daily food.
"In the nomadic herding areas, animals are growing weak and dying,"
said Philippa Crosland-Taylor, a director of Oxfam Britain in Kenya.
"Their pasture land is nothing but dry brush and dead leaves."
In urban areas like Nairobi, she added, incomes have plummeted and
food prices soared to levels the poor find unaffordable. "People's
coping strategies are getting more risky. They start cutting meals,
kids are taken out of school to gather rubbish, and women and children
are turning to sex work and crime."
Three other countries in eastern Africa – Ethiopia, Djibouti and
Uganda – are also in need of increased food aid, according to the UN
agency.
"Drought in Ethiopia has reached the stage where water sources have
dried up," said Baron, who has just returned from the Horn of Africa
country, where recurring famines have caused one of the highest
malnourishment levels in the world.
Both Ethiopia and Kenya have depended heavily on agriculture for
exports and employment. But they have become increasingly reliant on
imported food, which has risen in price dramatically in spite of the
global financial recession. African countries currently buy 25 per
cent of their food from foreign sources.
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