This year, Soudre Amado, a small farmer in Burkin Faso, had to plant five times since the drought dried the seeds before they could grow. Photo: Irina Fuhrmann/Oxfam
The spectre of hunger is again stalking the people of the western Sahel, at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Thanks to the early-warning systems funded by Canada and other donors, we now know that a major food crisis is brewing. We know in time to head it off.
Late and irregular rainfall, followed by plagues of birds, locusts and other pests have decimated the harvests of poor farmers and made pasture scarce for herders. Cereal production in the five countries of the region is down by a quarter from last year and is well below the five-year average. In Mauritania and Chad farmers harvested barely half what they got last year. National food reserves exist, but they hold nowhere near the quantity needed to mitigate the deficit.
The new escalation in fighting and insecurity along the Kenya-Somalia border risks increasing the suffering for civilians already devastated by drought and conflict, international agency Oxfam said today, three months since famine was announced in Somalia.
Oxfam said that any increase in fighting is likely to cause further displacement and restrict the aid effort at a time when 750,000 Somalis are at risk of death due to deteriorating conditions. The agency urged all parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law and make all efforts to minimise civilian casualties, while ensuring that the flow of aid to famine zones is not affected.
The provision of healthcare services in Mogadishu remains in crisis with very few doctors to deliver specialist care to patients in need. Niamh Cahill speaks to healthcare workers in the region
Forget about your troubles and imagine for a moment daily life in Somalia. Some 3.7 million people there are affected by drought and famine – a figure almost the same size as the population of Ireland. In Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, few doctors remain after many fled or were killed in fighting. Five hospitals with hugely depleted resources serve the needs of two million people. A community therapeutic care (CTC) programme delivered by SAA CID, a nongovernmental organisation founded in Somalia in 1990, in partnership with Oxfam, is trying to improve malnutrition among children under five years of age, as well as pregnant and lactating mothers.
In this region, the fate of families hangs on the health of their herds, and for this 15-year-old boy that means an enormous amount of responsibility. By Coco McCabe
A young herder tends to his cows in southern Ethiopia. Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson
He had the skinniest legs I think I’ve ever seen on a 15-year-old boy and one of the most disarming smiles, though it took a few minutes for that to appear. Being the mother of two boys and now, too soon, an empty-nester, I can’t help but notice these things.
He was standing next to a stretch of rough dirt road in front of a herd of cows so thin their ribs cast shadows on their hides. They were moving slowly in the heat of the morning, almost as if they were sleep walking. We were on our way to the village of Melka Guba in southern Ethiopia where drought has killed countless cattle and plunged millions of people into crisis. We had pulled over to wait for our colleagues who had stopped some miles back to repair a flat tire. When we finally turned our attention to our surroundings, there he was with his cows, studying our dust-coated truck. We were as curious to him as he was to us. We started to talk.
In Turkana, the failed rains, lack of available food and rising prices have left drought-affected communities dependent on outside aid.
Oxfam’s emergency cash transfer program, funded by the Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), a department of USAID, is helping to stimulate the local economy by working with 215 traders to boost their business and distribute monthly cash transfers to more than 5,500 drought-stricken families. This emergency cash offers people the choice to buy what they need and start alternative livelihoods to protect their assets in future droughts.
Kenya: A pastoralist woman stands under the shade of a tree
Lobunia Etoot holds his Oxfam registration card, Kenya
Kenya: Sabina Loliyak cooks a meal for her family
Waiting to collect their monthly cash transfers in Loruth, Kenya
Sabina Loliyak, Kenya
Kenya: Ekimat Maraha leaves a fingerprint to confirm cash receipt
Esinyem Maitha, Kenya
Jacinta runs a trader shop in the village of Nachukui, Kenya
It takes a lot of dedication, patience and attention to details to make sure that latrines are looked after in Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee complex. Agnes Mandela, Oxfam Hygiene Promotion Assistant explains.
Oxfam is aiming to reach approximately three million people across Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopa with humanitarian aid.
The severe drought in the Horn of Africa has resulted in one of the biggest global humanitarian crises in this centuryÂ
Highlight on Kenya -  Michael O’Riordan, Oxfam Ireland’s Humanitarian Coordinator is currently in Kenya and avaialble for interviews .
Over 12 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance in the Horn and East Africa region. Oxfam teams and partners are rapidly scaling up activities to provide lifesaving assistance in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. We are focusing on setting up or rehabilitating existing safe water systems, providing sanitation and hygiene services and providing emergency food security and livelihoods support. We aim to reach 3.5 million people with emergency relief, whilst at the same time addressing long-standing threats to livelihoods and further building the resilience of the communities we work with.
David Adams from the Irish Times questioned Oxfam’s method of working in Somalia in his recent column (August 25 2011). Oxfam works in Somalia, and across the world, primarily by providing financial, logistical and technical support to our local partners to support the people most in need.
Partners like Mohamed Dahir, a local Somali aid worker with an Oxfam partner helping to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) throughout Mogadishu and Lower Shabelle. With international support Dahir and his staff are on the ground delivering clean water and sanitation to more than 300,000 IDPs; frequently delivering lifesaving aid.
Oxfam is airlifting 47 tonnes of vital water supply and hygiene materials to Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, as the aid community scales up its effort to bring relief to the drought-stricken country. The flights are part of Oxfam’s efforts to control the outbreak of cholera and reduce public health risks in highly-populated camps.
