Faith Nyasuguta
Humanitarian organisations have cautioned that across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, one person is dying every 48 seconds from acute hunger tied to conflict, the climate crisis and the rising cost of food.
An Oxfam and Save the Children report estimates that around the world, 181 million people will experience crisis levels of hunger this year, with women particularly affected.
According to the organisations, starvation is a political failure.
They have criticised the international community for responding too late and with too little to prevent “cyclical and predictable” emergencies.
MILLIONS AT RISK OF SEVERE HUNGER
Majority of the communities across East Africa are facing similar fates, with small-scale farmers and herders the hardest hit — and least able to cope.
Estimates by the United Nations show that 13 million people across Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia are suffering severe hunger due to persistent drought, as the region is hit with the driest conditions recorded since 1981.
Aid organizations are worried that the situation in East Africa will likely deteriorate further without urgent and scaled-up support.
International aid group Oxfam cautioned that the hunger crisis could quickly turn into a “catastrophe” if aid fails to reach the most vulnerable.
“The brutal truth is that at the moment, East Africa is not on the global agenda,” Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher told the AP news agency.
In 2022 alone, hundreds of thousands of people in East Africa could die due to the hunger crisis, she said.
SOMALIS FORCED TO FLEE
The drought emergency has intensified in Somalia, with the number of people affected increasing to about 4.5 million people, up from 3.2 million in December 2021.
Many families in drought-ravaged rural areas are fleeing to major cities in search of food and water.
At the Al-Hidaya camp for internally displaced persons on the outskirts of the capital Mogadishu, Halimo Ali tries to console her four-year-old son.
Her family traveled to the camp, which currently holds over 800 families, from the south of Somalia.
“We have lost our cows and goats because of the severe drought,” Ali told DW. “We could not get food and water, so we decided to move.”
MALNOURISHED CHILDREN
Majority of those arriving at the camp are both malnourished and sick.
“These drought-affected people suffer from a lack of enough food while the children also suffer from anemia, measles, and weak bones,” community leader and camp chairman Nadifo Hussein said.
He said that with more people traveling to the capital from drought-hit regions, the camp would soon be unable to help new arrivals.
“We need lifesaving intervention,” he said.
Aden Farah, Humanitarian Advisor for Save the Children in Somalia, said about 671,000 people had been displaced internally in the country due to the drought.
In Somalia’s 2011 famine, an estimated 250,000 people died, half of them children.
This time around, some 5 million Somalis already face acute food insecurity.
