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East Africa is experiencing serious food shortages triggered by the failure of seasonal rains. Communities have lost their harvests resulting in at least 7 million people facing hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Somaliland.
For more information, read the accompanying news release.
Des Willie/ActionAid
Nine-year-old Chelimo tends a fire over
which loma berries are cooking. Chelimo
is from the Pokot people living in
Tangulbei in Kenya’s northern Rift
Valley, who are suffering from acute
food shortages. Loma berries are
poisonous. It takes a day to pick enough
berries for one meal, plus a day to dry
them and a day's cooking before they are
edible.
REF:
Des Willie/ActionAid
Tangulbei usually gets two rainy seasons
a year but has had inadequate rain for
more than 12 months. Crops have failed,
livestock are dying. The Pokot are
trying to diversify into drought
resistant crops. Abigail, already a
mother of two children, is seven months
pregnant. She has foraged aloe vera in a
desperate attempt to secure her family's
future. But it will take five years for
the plants to be ready for harvesting
and there is no guaranteed market.
REF:
Des Willie/ActionAid
In a parched landscape Tuwit, aged 10,
is gathering water from a muddy dried-
out water hole for her family to drink.
Most men are away searching for water
and pasture for cattle, so Tangulbei has
become a land of women and children.
Tuwit complains that the water tastes of
cow urine, but it is all there is.
REF:
Des Willie/ActionAid
Two trucks of emergency food supplied by
ActionAid are unloaded in a local
village. Aid workers will measure out
maize rations to the women waiting
patiently in line, first taking their
thumbprints to ensure that everyone gets
their rightful share.
REF:
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
