(July 04, 2011, The Telegraph)-The drought now blighting the vast, arid basin of land that stretches from northern Kenya through central Somalia and into eastern Ethiopia is among the worst anyone has seen. Some regions are drier than they have been since 1951.
International aid for the starving millions is needed because regional governments don't do enough, says Mike Pflanz.
No rain at all has fallen for more than a year in some places, and recent showers in others were half what would be expected.
Desperate people stumbling into camps and towns to find help are so malnourished that statistics reported to aid offices in Nairobi were at first not believed. "We sent them back because we thought they were wrong," says one senior aid official in Kenya's capital, the de facto centre of the current drought response.
In some areas of northern Kenya, 37 per cent of the population need emergency feeding. Across the Horn of Africa, levels of 20 per cent, 25 per cent and 30 per cent are being recorded regularly – double the 15 per cent emergency threshold.
"We may not be seeing the same number at risk as earlier in the decade, but those that are affected are in a much worse situation than perhaps at any time since the early 1990s," says Alun McDonald of Oxfam in Nairobi.
But none of this should have been a surprise. Save The Children calls today for £40 million to help save the lives of thousands of Kenyan and Somali children. Similarly urgent appeals for aid to east Africa were made in 2009, 2008 and 2006, and since the efforts of Bob Geldof and friends in 1984, there have been at least 60 major food crises in Africa. Read more »
Source: Thetelegraph.co.uk
Related topic:
Horn of Africa sees 'worst drought in 60 years'
International aid for the starving millions is needed because regional governments don't do enough, says Mike Pflanz.
No rain at all has fallen for more than a year in some places, and recent showers in others were half what would be expected.
Desperate people stumbling into camps and towns to find help are so malnourished that statistics reported to aid offices in Nairobi were at first not believed. "We sent them back because we thought they were wrong," says one senior aid official in Kenya's capital, the de facto centre of the current drought response.
In some areas of northern Kenya, 37 per cent of the population need emergency feeding. Across the Horn of Africa, levels of 20 per cent, 25 per cent and 30 per cent are being recorded regularly – double the 15 per cent emergency threshold.
"We may not be seeing the same number at risk as earlier in the decade, but those that are affected are in a much worse situation than perhaps at any time since the early 1990s," says Alun McDonald of Oxfam in Nairobi.
But none of this should have been a surprise. Save The Children calls today for £40 million to help save the lives of thousands of Kenyan and Somali children. Similarly urgent appeals for aid to east Africa were made in 2009, 2008 and 2006, and since the efforts of Bob Geldof and friends in 1984, there have been at least 60 major food crises in Africa. Read more »
Source: Thetelegraph.co.uk
Related topic:
Horn of Africa sees 'worst drought in 60 years'
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