Africa - drought

Drought puts millions at risk across east Africa

Article published on the 2009-11-02 Latest update 2009-11-02 18:29 TU

A Kenyan nomadic herder looks at his cow, too weak to walk, at a water point in the north of the country
(photo: Antony Njuguna/Reuters)

Aid agencies have warned that twenty three million people across seven countries in east Africa are threatened with starvation after five consecutive years of failed rains. RFI's Chris Thompson reports from Lodwar in Kenya.

Turkana province in Kenya’s arid northeast is the Ground Zero of east Africa's worst drought in a decade, caused by climate change.

On top of Soweto hill, over looking the dusty, ochre streets of the regional capital Lodwar, local guide Peter Yaturkwaly said that without the rains the area's pastoralist farmers cannot survive.

“You see the dry rives – it can no longer give water to the pastoralists. The strength of the Turkana people is in their animals, so if there’s no rain there’s no way they can survive – that’s why you sometimes see them in town begging. It’s like you have nothing.”

Thirty minutes drive north from Lodwar is Katohtokori village where the inhabitants are subsisting on the one meal a day, typically provided by aid agencies.

Mary Atabo, the community's statuesque matriarch, says the last good rains fell five years ago and she has lost much of her livestock since. “I had one hundred goats and now I’ve only got three. I’m surviving on relief food and burning charcoal which I sell ot get some income and support my family.”

In some Turkana communities malnutrition rates are up to 35 per cent way above the World Food Programme's officially mandated 15 per cent "crisis" threshold.

Eris Lothike, head of Oxfam in Turkana, warned that there could be famine if the rains keep failing. “That’s a looming possibility on the horizon because the pipeline of assistance is not predictable. The donors are experiencing difficulty in raising funds and so if more people need food aid people will [start to] die.”

Rains are predicted in Turkana for the weeks ahead, but it will likely be too little too late for those living on the unforgiving land.