KENYA: Reduced Food Supply Spawns Fears for Refugees’ Health

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Mar 16 1998 (IPS) - A 50-percent reduction in food rations for thousands of refugees in Kenya could lead to a deterioration in their health, a U.N. food agency has warned here.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said the cut, imposed at the beginning of March because the roads to the camps were impassable and funds for air transport insufficient, will continue until the end of the month.

In a statement made available to IPS on Sunday, the WFP said it needed two million US dollars to deliver food by air to the Dadaab refugee camps in north-east Kenya — on the border with Somalia — until the end of May. The camps are home to some 125,000 refugees, mostly from Somalia and the Sudan.

WFP said the transport of food to the Daadab camps continued to be problematic because heavy rains had severed road links earlier this year, and donations for the agency’s airbridge have been slow to arrive.

Only half the amount of food needed for distribution on Mar 15 had reached Dadaad. “To date refugees have been patient although disappointed with the reduced rations,” said Mike Sachett, WFP’s Regional Manager for the Horn of Africa and Country Director for Kenya. “We’re extremely concerned and are trying to do everything we can to ensure that this is the last ration cut.”

The agency also warned that the rains can be expected to return at any time from the end of March, which will make the main road to Dadaab impassable once again. While some stretches of the road have recently dried, large food trucks are unable to pass over the worst parts. Heavy rains would make it impossible for even small trucks to use the road.

Taking advantage of drier weather in north-eastern Kenya over the last three weeks, the WFP has been working with the Kenya Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Agriculture to repair the road between Garissa, the main town in the region, and Dadaab. To date, 70 kms of road has been repaired, said Sachett.

With the imminent onset of the seasonal rains, WFP says the next few weeks will be a critical time for it to build up the food stocks for the April-May distributions in the Dadaab camps.

“Ideally, we should now be stockpiling enough food for a full ration at the camps before the next onslaught of rains,” said Sackett. “But at this point, we’re so shackled by road and air transport problems that we can’t even deliver enough food for the refugees’ basic ration.”

Normally, WFP provides nearly 2,000 tonnes of food each month to the 125,000 refugees in the three Dadaab camps — Ifo, Hagadera and Dagahaley.

The WFP said that between December last and the beginning of this month, it was forced to airlift all food to the Dadaab camps because of the state of the Garissa-Dadaab main road.

Since December the agency has made monthly appeals for urgent funding for the airbridge. As only limited funding was received, it was not possible to avoid a 40-percent ration cut for the March distribution and when the shortfall of 1.4 million U.S. dollars was not covered, the air operation ground to a halt. Subsequently, rations for the refugees in Dadaab were halved at the beginning of March.

WFP states that there are ample food stocks in Mombasa and Garissa but that it has no choice but to cut refugee rations until the trucks can travel on the road to Dadaab in sufficient numbers or adequate funding is available for the airlifts.

“When the rains strart in April, the roads will be further damaged and air transport will be the only means available to move the food to the camps,” said Sackett. “It is critical that we receive money now for air operations so we can stockpile enough food for the April to May distribution.”

A fleet of smaller food trucks currently being used to move the food to the camps has been carrying an average of 60 tonnes of food, in an effort to give the refugees full rations by Apr 1.

Sachett’s statement came one month after Rikki Malik-Lali, who is the WFP’s Refugee Feeding Programme Advisor, warned that the proposed reduction would affect the health of the refugees.

He said the reduction came at a time when the refugees were particularly weak and already suffering from a rise in malaria as a result of the constant rains and flood conditions in the camps caused by the EL Nino phenomenon.

“These people are suffering intensely already and to cut their rations at this time is very worrying,” Malik-Lali had said. “They have no other means of survival and are entirely dependent upon WFP food aid,” which is made up of maize, wheat flour, beans, lentils, oil and salt.