KENYA-FOOD: Famine Threatens North-Eastern Province

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, May 14 1996 (IPS) - Famine looms in parts of arid north eastern Kenya, threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, community leaders warn.

“The situation is deadly,” says Arale Hassan Ahmed, an assistant minister of transport and communications. “If it’s not checked, we expect to see livestock carcasses in the area in a few weeks and possibly even people.”

The minister says conditions are appalling in Habaswein sub- district where 75 percent of the population need emergency relief food and urgent bore holes for their livestock.

“There’s no point distributing food to people and not providing water for their livestock,” he told IPS. “This is why we are appealing to the government, non-governmental organisations and individuals to help the people in the region before it’s too late.”

He is calling for a scheme to buy up the livestock before they die so villagers in the drought-struck region will have some income. “If we can get such orders, it will save the community from losing its entire herd of livestock,” he says.

It is not only Habaswein that famine is threatening but also Mandera town and Garissa. According to political activist Hussein Adam Adawa, who has come to Nairobi to highlight the plight of the region, people have already begun dying of famine-related diseases in Mandera town, some 800 kms north-east of here.

“More than 1,000 people died of famine-related diseases in Mandera town alone two weeks ago,” he told IPS. “The victims, all weakened by starvation, developed vomiting and diarrhea, and ultimately collapsed and died.”

The actual cause of death was probably cholera. Last week the authorities in the region summoned all doctors on leave to report to work immediately, following an outbreak of an epidemic in the town.

“The first report, put out by the ministry of health, said 16 people had died of the disease. And the second one, put out by the district commissioner Cosmos Matai, said only six people had died,” says Adawa, a member of the opposition Democratic Party.

All the victims, he says, hailed from the surburbs of Mandera town and were too poor to afford medical care. “To me, they were victims of starvation, not cholera,” he notes.

The situation in the region is a result of poor rainfall last season and the pull out by major international NGO’s and donor nostre riserve”. (ANSA). DN/MEN 14-MAG-96 12:10