Food crisis in East Africa grows as funds dwindle
Living water: women collect water from a water truck, funded by
Tearfund, in Didadi Village, in Kenya. Kenya, along with other
countries, has received emergency aid over the past year
Credit: RAPH HODGSON/TEARFUND
Living water: women collect water from a water truck, funded by
Tearfund, in Didadi Village, in Kenya. Kenya, along with other
countries, has received emergency aid over the past year
AID agencies have said that they need to raise $25 million to
address a "critical funding shortage" at the Dadaab refugee camps
in Kenya, which are housing refugees affected by the East African
food crisis (
News, 8 July 2011).
A briefing paper published on Thursday of last week by a group
of seven charities, including the Lutheran World Federation (LWF),
and the Catholic Relief Service, says that 130,000 refugees will
soon be without adequate shelter, and that the supply of new water
and sanitation services to 50,000 refugees is in danger. "Without
the only source of safe water and new latrines, the threat of
cholera is greatly increased," the briefing warns.
The head of CARE Kenya, Stephen Vaughan, said: "The funding
shortfall means people who have fled unimaginable suffering are not
getting the care they need. As well as the human cost, there is
also a cost to security in the region. If children are not going to
school, and if people do not have proper shelter and other
services, this has the potential to fuel further insecurity."
Leprosy: Nafisa Aminou, a leprosy sufferer from the West African
country of Niger.
Credit: THE LEPROSY MISSION
Leprosy: Nafisa Aminou, a leprosy sufferer from the West African
country of Niger.
The head of Oxfam in Kenya, Nigel Tricks, said: "Refugee camps
are only temporary solutions, and the situation is increasingly
untenable. Funds are needed now to save lives, but we can't keep
pumping money in year after year while the camp keeps getting
bigger. A change in approach is urgently needed. However, right
now, the world has an obligation not to turn its back on Dadaab and
the needs of the people there."
Christian Aid issued a statement on Thursday of last week, one
year since the Disasters Emergency Committee launched an appeal for
the East Africa crisis. It said that the British public had donated
£79 million to the region, "which in the last year has funded
emergency aid for 2.3 million people. . .
"With some areas experiencing the worst rainfall in 60 years,
and parts of Somalia affected by famine in 2011, the aid effort has
helped save many lives in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, and parts of
South Sudan. However, the region has still had only erratic rains
at best, and the conflict in south-central Somalia continues,
meaning that nine million people across the region are still in
need of food aid."
The international director of Tearfund, David Bainbridge, said:
"We're not out of the woods yet. We're expecting poor harvests in
Kenya because of long rains and crop failure in the southern
lowlands; so we'll continue to support communities in East Africa
to be more resistant to future unpredictable rainfall."
On Monday, the Leprosy Mission launched its first ever emergency
appeal, for the food crisis in West Africa (
News, 27 January), which it said was "becoming a full-scale
humanitarian crisis".
A statement from the Leprosy Mission said that the lives of
people with leprosy were at risk in Niger, where the charity funds
treatment services at the CSL Danja Hospital. "More and more people
are going hungry each day, causing families to uproot - even
travelling to neighbouring countries in a desperate bid for work or
handouts - to attempt to stop their children's hunger pangs."
The Leprosy Mission's director, Peter Walker, said that "never
before have we witnessed a natural disaster such as this
threatening the existence of thousands of people we are striving to
help.
"While we are facing our own economic challenges in the UK, it
takes relatively little - just £32 - to keep a leprosy-affected
family of six fed for a full month. I would urge people to help if
at all possible, and think of those suffering as a result of this
devastating crisis."
The Bishop of Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
the Rt Revd Sylvestre Bahati Bali-Busane, appealed last week for
prayers and support for people who have been displaced as a result
of fighting in the eastern part of the country. "The diocese of
Bukavu, recognising the holistic mission of the Church, is humbly
requesting prayers and any kind of support, so that vulnerable
victims can get relief through the Church," he said.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has lent his support to the launch
of a fund-raising appeal by Farm Africa, a British charity that
helps communities in rural Africa to grow food. The appeal "Give
Hunger the Boot!" asks churches to take part in a "welly-walk" to
raise money.
Children from Spurgeons Academy, a school run by the Christian
charity Global Care, in Kibera, a slum on the outskirts of
Nairobi
Credit: GLOBAL CARE
Children from Spurgeons Academy, a school run by the Christian
charity Global Care, in Kibera, a slum on the outskirts of
Nairobi