The famine and drought striking East Africa have created one of the worst humanitarian tragedies of this generation. Thousands of children have starved to death and many more are in grave peril from malnutrition.
Somalis are desperately fleeing into Kenya and Ethiopia in the search for food, only these countries are also suffering from food shortages. With the unrelenting drought, the crisis could get much worse. Children are suffering from severe malnutrition. Aid agencies are struggling to keep up.
At a GIZ hospital at a refugee camp in Kenya, a severely malnourished Somali refugee child receives treatment. (Photo by Laura Sheahen/Catholic Relief Services)
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is one of the aid groups in a race to save lives. CRS officers Laura Sheahen, who just visited one of the refugee camps in Kenya, and Sara A. Fajardo, took time to discuss the massive relief effort underway.
How is Catholic Relief Services helping the victims of famine and drought in East Africa?
Sara A. Fajardo: To give just a few examples, we are currently helping to feed more than a million people in Ethiopia and have launched projects in Isiolo and Wajir, Kenya and about to launch projects in Mandera where the drought’s impact has been severe. Some of the pastoralist communities living there have lost 50-100 percent of their livestock. These projects include rehabilitating wells, assisting with school-feeding programs and working on conflict mitigation projects between different pastoralist communities who may be trying to access the same limited resources.
In the Dadaab Refugee area we will be working through partners to distribute around 10,000 hygiene kits to arriving refugees. As part of our “do no harm” approach to humanitarian aid, we will also be providing assistance to the host communities surrounding the Dadaab refugee camps. These communities have also been severely impacted by the drought but are often overlooked because of the seemingly more pressing needs of the incoming refugees. Tensions can often flare up when one community perceives another as receiving assistance while they are left to fend for themselves. We will provide them with water and food aid and work with them to help weather the difficult months ahead.
Somali refugees at Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Following a severe drought, many families faced starvation and left Somalia on foot. Thousands of refugees are flooding into Dadaab every week. (Photo by Laura Sheahen/Catholic Relief Services)
Even before this drought hit, Catholic Relief Services was on the ground working to help communities prepare for this current emergency. In Kenya our staff has been working over the past three years alone to provide 91 water points to local communities, helped to create tree nurseries with more than 3.7 million seedlings, worked to get more than 2,500 miles of agricultural terraces built, and provided more than 108,000 female goats to our beneficiaries.
Article comments