By Chief Africa Correspondent Anne Soy
Children, some with empty sacks in their hands, wait outside a feeding centre
Drought, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have led to severe food shortages in the Horn of Africa, with millions of people starving. The BBC’s Anne Soy reports from northern Kenya, where food is scarce and many are struggling to feed themselves and their families.
At a food distribution center in the village of Kachoda, a mother smiles as she picks up some grains and cooking oil, but is too weak to carry it. The package falls to the ground as he tries to lift it up to his head.
But he is among the lucky few who have chosen to receive help – hundreds of people have gathered outside the food distribution center, many of them carrying empty sacks.
There is hardly any grass to be seen in this dry, dusty area near the border with Ethiopia and South Sudan.
I am traveling with Samantha Power, USAID Administrator. He called for more international aid to “prevent the catastrophe of hunger” in this region.
The US alone cannot meet the demand for people in Africa who need emergency aid, he said.
Inside the distribution center, a committee of community residents has the tough task of deciding who benefits from the scarce supply.
Community leader Enos Lochul has lost his livestock
President Enos Lochul says they prioritize the weakest. But he too has been personally affected.
“I feel very bad, my heart is burning,” he says, explaining that he was reduced to a beggar after a long drought wiped out his only means of livelihood – his livestock.
“My children come to me begging for food, but I have no way to provide. I cannot stop crying. Tears flow. They ask for school fees, but I have nothing.”
His children have had to drop out of school and his wife has been forced to produce charcoal and find wood to sell.
Ms Power, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, says USAID has invested $200m (£167m) in therapeutic supplements in Kenya, where there are one million malnourished children, “but more is needed”.
“We are talking about massive loss of jobs and risk of loss of life,” he says. “And that’s why the US has come forward, but the needs here are far greater than one country can handle.”
Samantha Power, center, says the stakes are “existential.”
Aid agencies, including the World Food Programme, say around 50 million people in the Horn of Africa region – namely Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan – could face severe food insecurity this year if they do not receive food. emergency food aid.
“The stakes are existential,” notes Ms. Power.
I stand by the door and see that the few people chosen to receive the food are carrying it on their heads or backs. Some use wheels.
Only 15% of Kachoda community members will receive food there, an assistant told me. There are people with disabilities, families who have lost all their livestock and mothers with small children.
More than 1 million children in Kenya are malnourished. We spoke to parents who lost all their livestock at the Kachoda health clinic in Turkana; income in droughts. Their children survived severe malnutrition as a result of therapeutic RUTF supplementation. USAID has just made a historic $200 million investment, but more is needed. pic.twitter.com/6gDZ594gMM
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“There are serious cases of under-five malnutrition at the community level,” says Emily Emoru, community health strategy manager. Several mothers with severely malnourished children meet with Ambassador Power at the health center in Kachoda.
One of them was Achwaa Katabo, a mother of eight. Reaching the emaciated three-year-old child, he explains that every time he receives food that will last him a month or two, he will share it with his relatives and neighbors, as it runs out in days. All his goats starved to death.
Her child was enrolled in nutritional supplements at the health center, but Emily says the effect is usually short-lived.
“After they are discharged into the community, in that house where they have nothing to feed them, these children usually fall back,” he explained.
