‘No water, no rain – we can’t feed the animals’ – Village
April 26th, 2006
Simon Roughneen in Moyale, Kenya-Ethiopia border.
Livestock death is regarded as a precursor of famine (Photo: Simon Roughneen, southern Ethiopia)
At least five million people are chronically food-dependent in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation. In the Somali and Oromo regions, failed rains mean failed water sources for animals and for people. Failed rains mean no pasture or foliage for the cattle, camels, donkeys and goats that people depend on for food and livelihoods.
Prices for animals plummet, meaning that sale prices cannot do much to help people purchase food and other essential items. As animals die, people are left vulnerable. Mohamed Yusuf, a herder moving his animals on the Moyale-Yabelo road in southern Ethiopia, said: “This is dangerous for us. No water, no rain. We can’t feed the animals. Twenty one of my cattle have died. I have no other source of income. And now I can’t sell any animals. The price is one-fifth of the real value before the drought.”
And although a little rain has fallen on the parched land, it is just that: a little. And the rains due for the next two months will likely be insufficient in any case. But the rain brings its own problems. A poisoned chalice poured from the sky, rain makes animals and people, already weakened from malnutrition, prone to diseases such as measles. And when rivers and lakes are watered again, malaria becomes a serious threat, and what is left of northern Kenya’s infrastructure has been threatened by flash floods.
In Somalia – a non-existent state is prey to warlords and gangsters, making delivery of aid difficult at best and downright dangerous at worst. And recent weeks has seen dozens killed in cattle-raiding in northern Kenya, as resources are depleted and the stakes are raised for men with guns.
And with pre-famine conditions rife in the drought-affected region, there is not much time left if another full-scale famine hits Ethiopia, and across the horn of Africa. (more…)
Drought intensifies in Horn of Africa – RTÉ Morning Ireland
April 5th, 2006
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0405/morningireland.html
Severely-malnourished infant treated at clinic in eastern Ethiopia (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Darfur: local conflict, international chaos – ISN
April 5th, 2006
Simon Roughneen in El-Fasher, Darfur
A senior Chadian general died in a battle with rebels near the Chad-Sudan border, close to the Darfur region, on 30 March. It was the latest sign that the three-year-old Darfur conflict is set to degenerate in the coming months, and could also lead to the destabilization of Chad and a Sudan-Chad war.
Since February 2003 – when Darfur rebels known as the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), joined later by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked government positions in the western region – between 200,000 and 400,000 people have died from conflict or related causes, and over two million others have been displaced into refugee camps in Chad or Darfur. (more…)
“Our Goats are our Gardens” – Evening Herald
March 24th, 2006
LOKICHAR, KENYA – Ekiru Lotiayan walked for two days with his herd of 35 goats just to reach this dried-up river bed near Lokichar in northern Kenya’s Turkana district.
He points to a mountain on the horizon. “That is my home. My family wait there for me to come back”, he tells us.
We have been suffering with the hunger for many years. In Turkana, we have not had proper rains for two years. Our animals are dying. And we are suffering. We need our animals to live. We have no other way.”
6 months previously, this whole area was a freshwater lake. Now locals have dig down into the bed to find water (Photo: Simon Roughneen, northern Kenya, March 2006)
This part of northern Kenya is home to 600,000 people, out of an estimated 11 million people across eastern Africa that are affected by drought and food shortages. 3.5 million of those are in Kenya, east Africa’s wealthiest country. Elsewhere, 2.6 million Ethiopians and 1.7 million Somalis are vulnerable.
The area where north-eastern Kenya, southern Somalia, and Ethiopia share borders is especially badly affected. Lack of infrastructure, remoteness, marginalisation, and insecurity combine to not only undermine local people’s ability to deal with the harsh landscape and arid conditions, but hinder whatever aid effort can be mounted.
Ekiru’s goats scrimmage around a freshly-dug pit in the riverbed. After cutting 7 feet into the surface, the underground water welled up. Now a 10 foot X 7 foot pool of brown stagnant water is lapped-up avidly by the thirsty animals. (more…)
Even Camels Thirst Here – Irish Examiner
March 24th, 2006
On the road between Lodwar and Lokichar in northern Kenya’s Turkana district, we met a woman carrying 15 litres of water in a container balanced on her head.
She got the water she carries from a borehole further along the road. It is shared between around 100 families. And with the water table depleted, the water must be rationed. Moreover, the water she brings will be given to animals as well as her family. It will not go far.
It is an onerous task in any circumstances – but ordinarily Turkana women would not stop to rest while ferrying water even on the 7 mile roundtrip she is making.
Turkana women at Lodwar, northern Kenya, March 2006 (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
It is now evening, and Esther is tired, weakened by months of not having enough food, and as she says;
“We don’t know if we will have enough food, there is not enough water.”
Here, where people’s lives are inextricably bound to their animals, no water means no food.
She adds, “Our animals are dying and they are our food and our livelihood. Without them we are nothing”
With 5 rings around her neck in the Turkana style, Esther is – or was – deemed well-off by local standards. (more…)
Drought, disaster loom – ISN
March 21st, 2006
Simon Roughneen in Turkana, Kenya
The failure of the long rains in late 2005 has left at least 11 million east Africans vulnerable to a severe drought and debilitating food shortages. As animals die due to lack of water and pasture, the people who depend on their livestock for milk, meat, and income are growing hungrier by the day. A region characterised by persistent food insecurity, eastern Africa now faces the real possibility that a famine could devastate its drought-affected areas.
Hunger often affects the young first. Infants are usually most vulnerable to malnutrition (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya are the hardest-hit countries, with food insecurity also a problem in Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea, and Tanzania. Meanwhile, in Sudan and Uganda, over eight million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) languish in camps, dependent on food aid. (more…)
Kenya needs reform – RTÉ 5-7 Live
March 13th, 2006
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0313/57live.html
Cradle of Humanity in Need – The Irish News
March 13th, 2006
KANGAKIPUR, KENYA – “The area is dry, the problem is water – we have none. And when there’s no water, there’s no food”, says Paul Enyang, Chief of Kangakipur, a tiny village 30 miles from the nearest road in northern Kenya’s Turkana District.
Young children are vulnerable to illness as malnutrition hits (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
To reach Kangakipur, we drove in scorching heat, weaving between the termite mounds and thorn bushes, the sole vegetation still alive in the scorched northern Kenyan terrain, as random camels, whose humps now almost flattened due to lack of water, scatter as the jeep approaches where they forage for whatever bit of scrub they can find.
Dried-up river beds intersected the road as we drove on, at first glance appearing like a regular crossroads on the approach. (more…)
Eastern Sudan tempts Darfurian fate – ISN
March 7th, 2006
Simon Roughneen in Kassala, eastern Sudan
Women's literacy class Kassala, eastern Sudan (Photo: Simon Roughneen, Feb 2006)
With conflict rife in Sudan’s troubled Darfur, and peace still tenuous in the south, another of Sudan’s marginalized regions could be set to erupt. Eastern Sudan exhibits many of the traits that led to war in Darfur since 2003 and in southern Sudan from 1983-2005.
Claims of marginalization exacerbated by national and local ethnic differences and clashes over natural resources has contributed to the conflicts southern Sudan and Darfur. The same dynamics are in place in eastern Sudan.
On 24 January 2005, three weeks after the Sudanese government and the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the Sudanese army opened fire on a demonstration in the eastern city of Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast. At least 20 people were killed.
This incident plus the ongoing government clampdown, tensions both generated and exacerbated by the signing of the CPA, and the potent example of government tactics in Darfur all contributed to the formation of the Eastern Front in February 2005. The newly formed and relatively unexamined movement promises to forcibly resist Khartoum’s likely attempt to retake the Hameshkoreb enclave in eastern Sudan, near the Eritrean border, once the former SPLM/A withdraws. (more…)
‘They come at night, sometimes they kill’ – The Irish Times
March 6th, 2006
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2006/0306/1141298078447.html
Letter from Darfur: The Roman philosopher Seneca said “merely to live is an act of courage”. Three years after the onset of the Darfur conflict in Sudan, courage is still needed – and demonstrated – by Darfur’s war displaced.
And courage is still needed by those inside the apparent sanctuary provided by the many large camps for those who were forced to abandon their homes and move elsewhere in their country – internally-displaced people (IDPs) in humanitarian parlance.
Darfurian woman at clinic close to her camp (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
The Darfur conflict began militarily in February 2003 when the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) launched attacks on El-Fasher and Golo, further south in Darfur. Protesting at what they saw as marginalisation by Sudan’s central government, the rebels’ initial success incurred government reprisals. (more…)
