Ethiopia has warned that its supply of emergency food aid will be finished by next month. Nearly 16 million people need urgent assistance as drought continues to parch the breadth of the Horn of Africa.
The number of drought victims in Ethiopia has reached 7.8 million people, according to the government. Mitiku Kassa, the country’s disaster relief chief, said the Horn of Africa nation needed more than $1 billion (893 million euros) for emergency assistance.
Cows are dying in huge numbers as the expected seasonal rains have not been enough to bring relief. In the past two months, the number of people facing severe hunger has risen by two million people. The drought has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Many Somalis have sought refuge in Ethiopia. Donor fatigue and similar crises in several other parts of the world are to blame for the slow response. Apart from the drought, Ethiopia is facing an outbreak of what the government has called watery diarrhea. Critics, however, say it is a cholera outbreak.
“It is very worrying. These people are not going to be able to continue to survive in these dilapidated displaced people’s camps. It could get very much worse. We are also worried that some of the children affected by the drought may die,” John Graham, the Ethiopia country director for the aid group Save the Children.
Deaths in Somalia
At least 14 people, mostly women, were killed after being caught in crossfire between two groups of government soldiers. The incident took place on Friday at a food distribution site in Somalia’s southwestern city of Baidoa.
Somalia is one of four countries – alongside Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen – that the United Nations named in a $4.4 billion appeal for aid to deal with the drought. IOM intended to reach out to the nearly 2 million people most affected by the drought – particularly in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia.
“In the coming months, we are likely to see many more needing humanitarian aid and being displaced, due to the poor rains,” Jeffrey Labovitz, the regional director for East and Horn of Africa at the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
This year’s drought is different from the one that took place in 2011 and killed 260,000 people, mostly in South Central Somalia, according to the United Nations. The current famine is affecting a larger part of the country and putting more people at risk. Seven hundred thousand people have been displaced within Somalia so far.
Source: AllAfrica. Read full article here.
12 June, 2017
