Drought-Stricken Farmers Eating Termites in Kenya

‘Humanitarian Catastrophe’ in Horn of Africa:

Debilitating drought destroys crop, sending food prices skyrocketing, and forcing millions of people and their dying animal to migrate.  

The Government of Kenya declared a national drought emergency on 10 February. The latest round of debilitating drought has affected 23 of 47 counties across the country. “The number of food insecure people more than doubled – from 1.3 million to 2.7 million. Some 357,285 children and pregnant and lactating mothers are acutely malnourished,” said UN OCHA.

Maize production in the coastal areas has decreased by 99 per cent compared to the long term average.

The rainfall deficit in the Horn of Africa has been particularly acute across Somalia, multiple parts of  Ethiopia,  Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan.

“According to the Nairobi-based International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe), a growing number of farmers in eastern and western Kenya are now harvesting and eating insects like termites to cope with prolonged drought.”

Situation Overview [UN OCHA]

• The 2016 Deyr or short rains season (October to December) brought severely low levels of rainfall to the region.
• The situation is worse than in 2010-11 in many ways.
• The drought has had a major impact on water resources, including on river flow levels and the availability of water for human and livestock consumption.
• Widespread crop failures have affected farming and agro-pastoral communities in most of Somalia, southwestern Ethiopia and northeastern Kenya, with food prices skyrocketing.
• Livestock are becoming increasingly weak, contracting diseases and dying at alarming rates, with catastrophic consequences for pastoral communities.
• Terms of trade are declining sharply for pastoralists, contributing to rising food insecurity and malnutrition.
• Household production of milk and meat is low and the price of milk and other dairy products has skyrocketed.
• 12.8 million people in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia face are severely food insecure and are in need of humanitarian assistance.
• Approximately 600,000 children aged 6 to 59 months in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia will be in need of treatment for severe acute malnutrition in 2017 and this number is expected to rise rapidly. In Somalia, 13 out of 27 rural and displaced groups have Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rates above emergency (15 per cent) levels.
• The drought and the associated reduced access to water and sanitation has the potential to further exacerbate ongoing disease outbreaks and create new ones. About 15 million people will not have access to safe drinking water in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia in 2017.
• Drought, economic shocks and conflict in the region have disrupted the education of approximately 6 million children in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
• The drought has triggered movements of families in search of grazing land, water and work, increasing the risk of family separation and tensions among communities over scarce resources.
• Repeated cycles of climatic shocks, coupled with insufficient recovery periods, have limited household and community coping mechanisms.

‘War in Yemen poses ever-growing threat to children’

10 Million children in Yemen facing a new year of misery

The following statement is attributable to Julien Harneis, UNICEF Representative in Yemen

“With no end in sight to the deadly conflict in Yemen, nearly 10 million children inside the country are now facing a new year of pain and suffering.

Continuous bombardment and street fighting are exposing children and their families to a deadly combination of violence, disease and deprivation.

“The direct impact of the conflict on children is hard to measure. The statistics confirmed by the UN (747 children killed and another 1,108 injured since March last year; 724 children pressed into some form of military activity) tell only part of the story. But they are shocking enough in themselves.

“The broader effects of the violence on innocent civilians extend much further. Children make up at least half of the 2.3 million people estimated to have been displaced from their homes, and of the more than 19 million people struggling to get water on a daily basis; 1.3 million children under five face the risk of acute malnutrition and acute respiratory tract infections. And at least 2 million children cannot go to school.

“Public services like health, water and sanitation have been decimated and cannot meet the ever-increasing needs of a desperate population. Few of the 7.4 million children requiring protection (including psycho-social support to help deal with the effects of their exposure to violence) will actually receive it.

“The longer-term consequences of all this for Yemen – which was already the Middle East’s poorest nation even before the conflict — can only be guessed at.

“Agencies like UNICEF are doing the best they can, in an extremely hazardous working environment. As a result, in 2015, more than 4 million children under 5 were vaccinated against measles and polio, and 166,000 children were admitted for treatment against malnutrition. Over 3.5 million affected people were provided with access to water and 63,520 people belonging to extremely poor communities were assisted with humanitarian cash transfers in the cities of Sanaa and Taiz.

“But so much more is needed. The children of Yemen need urgent help and they need it now.

“That can happen if all parties involved in the conflict – as is their duty under International Humanitarian Law — were to allow unhindered access to areas affected by the fighting, where civilians are dying because hospitals are not functioning, medicines are in short supply and children are at risk of dying from preventable diseases. Aid agencies would then be able to scale up their work accordingly.

“But what is really needed — above all else — is an end to the conflict. Only in that way can the children of Yemen look forward to 2016 with hope rather than despair.”