From southern Ethiopia to northern Kenya via Somalia, the Horn of Africa is facing a drought that is alarming humanitarian organizations, with nearly 20 million people at risk of hunger. In these regions where the population lives mainly from livestock and agriculture, the last three rainy seasons since the end of 2020 have been marked by low rainfall, in addition to an invasion of locusts which ravaged crops between 2019 and 2021. One month after the theoretical start of the rainy season, “The number of people who are hungry due to drought could skyrocket from the current estimate of 14 million to 20 million in 2022”the World Food Program (WFP) said in April.
Without rain and without resources, millions of families in the horn of the#Africa are getting closer to disaster every day.
Hunger fueled by prolonged drought.
More information https://t.co/itoWqs65pt pic.twitter.com/N8kuSRtZmF
— PAM (WFP in French) (@WFP_FR) April 19, 2022
Nearly 40% of Somalia’s population, or six million people, face extreme levels of food insecurity and some areas are likely already experiencing famine, according to the UN’s humanitarian coordination agency, Ocha. In Ethiopia, 6.5 million people face a “severe food insecurity”, as well as 3.5 million people in Kenya, according to the agency. Across the region, a million people have had to leave their homes due to lack of water and pasture, and at least three million head of cattle have perished, adds Ocha. “We must act now (…) if we want to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe”, declared for his part during a briefing in Geneva Chimimba David Phiri, the FAO representative to the African Union.
The #CornedofAfrica is experiencing one of the worst droughts in its recent history.
Hunger and lack of water are a reality for more than 15 million people in #Ethiopia, #Kenya and #Somalia.https://t.co/sYDYgdTnJZpic.twitter.com/0PcAqkW8tu
– UN humanitarian (@UNOCHA_fr) April 28, 2022
The situation is aggravated by the conflict in Ukraine, which has contributed to rising food and fuel prices and disrupted supply chains, the UN said.
According to Catherine Russell, executive director of Unicef, ten million children in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya need life-saving assistance. “More than 1.7 million children are severely malnourished across the region”, she said in a statement released after a four-day visit to Ethiopia last week. According to Catherine Russell, the lack of clean water increases the risk of disease among children, while hundreds of thousands of them have stopped school, being forced to walk long hours to find water and the food. In 2017, early humanitarian mobilization averted a famine in Somalia, unlike 2011 when 260,000 people, half of them children under the age of six, died of starvation or hunger-related disorders.
Beyond the direct fatal consequences, the shortage of water and the scarcity of pastures are also sources of conflict, especially between herders. In Kenya, renowned for its reserves and natural parks, wildlife is also threatened. Many cases of wild animals (giraffes, antelopes, etc.), dead for lack of water and food, have been recorded. It also happens that animals leave their usual habitat area in search of water or food. In the center of the country, felines attacked herds, elephants or buffaloes came to graze on farms, arousing the anger of the inhabitants.