Famine creeps in southern Ethiopia as worst drought in decades set to continue
mmj/jd 06.04.2023, 10:56
Photo: Mohammed Abdu Abdulbaqi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The fruit of three years of failed rains becomes visible in the southern Ethiopian village of Kura Kalicha whose whereabouts are littered with decomposing cattle carcasses, their flesh picked over by scavengers.
Jilo Wile, a local government official, fears the villagers will be next.
“We have over 100 people in critical condition from starvation. This number includes children, elders, and pregnant women,” Wile, who has lost 73 of his 75 cattle to the drought, told Reuters.
Like its neighbors Somalia and Kenya, southern Ethiopia is enduring the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades. Five consecutive rainy seasons have failed and the one underway is expected to as well.
In Somalia, which has been hit the hardest, an estimated 43,000 people died because of the drought last year, researchers said last month.
No fatalities have yet been directly attributed to the drought in the Oromiya region, where Kura Kalicha is located, or the neighboring drought-affected regions, but humanitarian workers say it will not be long.
Locals say assistance has been slow to arrive. Ethiopia’s federal government and state media only began to talk about the crisis publicly last month when it issued a statement.
There is general agreement that the available resources are inadequate. Last year, Ethiopia received only half of the USD 3.34 billion required for humanitarian needs, including the drought but also the fallout from the war in the northern region of Tigray.
Nearly 12 million people are estimated to be food insecure in Ethiopia’s drought-affected areas, according to the United Nations.
Jilo Guracha, a 40-year-old mother of seven, walked 85 kilometers (53 miles) in the scorching heat to reach a camp where she and two of her sons could receive food rations.
The camp, in the Dubuluk district, was set up a year ago in an empty field, and now hosts 53,000 people who live in small huts made from grass and used plastic bags.
“Some are committing suicide after failing to provide for their family. We beg the government to save us from dying of hunger until God brings us rain,” she said.
source: REUTERS