People struggle to survive in the arid lands of Kenya. And the forecast for the next rainy season does not bode well. Beginning of a series of reports from Duty.
Garikorte Elemo, 22, lost his grandmother four months ago. She died, weakened by the lack of food, she explains to the Duty. She tells her story sitting in her hut, which offers respite from the harsh sun and 35°C that day in the middle of the arid land.
“We have no food,” she explains. I had a lot of difficulty feeding him. She speaks softly, without effusion, her features drawn. She will lie on the floor after the interview: she herself has skipped several meals in recent days.
The enriched corn and soy blend rations provided by the World Food Program and which she was able to get her hands on were not enough. “I really struggled to get her better, but at some point I accepted the fact that we didn’t have to eat,” she says. Sometimes I gave him strong black tea, without milk. She got weaker and weaker every day. »
Her grandmother is now buried behind the hut, and a small vase has been placed on her grave. The young woman lives in a small village of nomadic herders settled near Balaah, in the north of Kenya, in the county of Marsabit. Here, as in all the other communities that The duty visited, people struggle to eat one meal a day.
In recent years, the country, like others in the Horn of Africa, has been hit by drought, as five consecutive rainy seasons have seen lower than normal rainfall. Added to this are higher temperatures. Marsabit is among the worst affected counties in the country, according to the National Drought Management Authority.
“It’s unprecedented, we’ve never seen it before,” says Joyce Kimutai, a climate scientist who works for Kenya’s Department of Meteorology. In 70 years, we have never had a drought as bad as this. »
She describes this climatic event as “extreme”, and the predictions for the next rainy season, which will begin in March, are not positive.
decimated herds
The herds of goats, sheep, cows and dromedaries are at the center of the life of the herders, who depend entirely on them to earn money and survive. But pastures are now almost non-existent, and the rivers are dry. The outskirts of towns have turned into open-air cemeteries, strewn with the carcasses of animals that have died of hunger and thirst.
Everywhere, the story is the same. Ranchers are losing large numbers of animals, and many fear the worst.
“It’s the worst drought I’ve ever experienced,” said Lejas Bursuna, who lives near Laisamis. She welcomes us in front of her hut in the early morning, with at her feet a very young goat that died the day before. The woman in her 50s saw her household’s herd of goats and sheep shrink from 50 to 20. Others have seen their herds drop from 300 to 30 animals. Cattle that they will not be able to sell in the market, resulting in huge financial losses. The animals they have left are lean and less valuable.
“It’s normal for us to go to sleep without having eaten a meal,” says Lejas Bursuna. Access to camel meat and milk is much more difficult. Her family depends on her. When she goes to bed at night, her thoughts are swirling around in her head, and stress keeps her awake. “I wonder, tomorrow morning, where am I going to go, what are they going to eat,” she said.
She survives thanks to donations from good Samaritans and, like several people we met, she sometimes begs her neighbors for food so that she can cook for her children and grandchildren.
More than nine million Kenyans are pastoralists, out of a total population of 53 million. They own livestock worth more than a billion US dollars, and their way of life is now at stake. In the communities, many are pointing the finger at climate change.
Specialist Joyce Kimutai, who researches the role climate change plays in such events, cannot confirm this, however. With a team from World Weather Attribution (WWA), she began a study for the publication of a scientific article to determine if the drought is beyond any doubt attributable to climate change. “The country must have food security,” she believes. We have to find a way of doing things that is more sustainable. »
children are hungry
The Kenyan government, local governments and organizations are distributing water, food, supplements and cash to help those most affected. At the Balaah dispensary, which serves between 8,000 and 9,000 people, the “urgent” situation has nevertheless gone from “bad to worse”.
“We don’t have enough resources at all. Sometimes there are no supplies, no water,” says nurse Solomon Murangiri. The clinic has specific criteria for giving supplements and fortified cereals. This concerns children under five and pregnant or breastfeeding women. “It’s a challenge, because they share the food we give them,” he says. Some are struggling to recover.
The number of children suffering from malnutrition, a situation that already prevailed before the drought, is on the rise. At the health center in Malabot, a village of 500 people in northwest Marsabit County, the on-site nurse counts 70 children under the age of 5 who benefit from a special feeding program which allows them to have access to supplements from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Of this number, 10 children suffer from severe malnutrition, but the situation is not at the stage of famine.
“We have new cases every month,” reports clinic nurse Joseph Adano. While making rounds with his colleague, he often notes cases that require readmission, because the weight of the children has become too low again. “At home, they have little or no food after being discharged from the program,” he says.
This is the case of the three-year-old boy from Adho Abudho, 38, who is being followed by the program for the second time in almost a year and a half. The child was in a sorry state four months ago, before his readmission.
“My heart hurts not being able to feed my children at every meal,” says the mother of five, who lost 30 animals out of a herd of 50.
Outside the hut, the wind blows hard on the dark-colored sand where a handful of huts are planted, and the gusts cause the branches of the few stunted trees and bushes to rise.
As in the other villages, most of the men and teenagers are outside and sometimes walk for tens of kilometers with what remains of their animals, in the hope of finding a water point or some greenery to feed them. Many predict the end of their ancestral way of life if the bad rainy seasons persist.
“We are devastated, our cattle are everything to us,” says Adho Abudho. It’s our family. »
With Safi Godana
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.