An almost four-year drought in eastern Africa is threatening to starve up to 20 million people and entirely ruin an old way of life. April and May are expected to be the wettest months of the year in the Horn of Africa, which includes southern Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Djibouti.
However, for the previous three years, these months have remained dry and hot – and there is no indication that this will change this year. This will be the region’s most severe drought in four decades unless rains arrive surprisingly late. People are thirsty, they are unable to cultivate food, their livestock is dying, and their nomadic way of life is crumbling. The drought is having terrible knock-on consequences, including a malnutrition crisis that has left around 10 million youngsters in the region in need of immediate medical attention.
People are starving!
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 6.5 million people are in danger of acute food insecurity in Ethiopia alone. Across the whole region, about 1.5 million cattle herds have died, making farming impossible.
Children are the most at risk!
Millions of children are at risk of hunger and illnesses like cholera as a result of a shortage of food and clean water. While adults are also at risk, young individuals with less developed immune systems are especially vulnerable if they become ill while malnourished. Many children also remain untreated for far too long because their parents are overburdened with caring for them and transporting them to hospitals.
Hunger and poverty have also increased the number of child marriages, ‘as families marry off their girls in the belief that they would be better fed and protected, as well as receive dowries,’ according to UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell.
Breakdown of a way of life and families!
Many of those most hit by the drought are nomads or tribes that wander with their animals in search of rain. With no rain in the forecast and no way to feed their families, people are abandoning their customs and migrating to towns in search of jobs, residing in villages.
Family groupings and relationships are also disintegrating, with some resorting to splitting up or sending women and children to emergency camps while men stay with their cattle in a determined hunt for grass to graze. Alternative men travel to cities in search of other forms of work, while others flee because the duty of feeding their families is too much for them.
Droughts aren’t common in Africa!
Due to its hot temperature and location on the earth, the Horn of Africa, like many other locations on the continent, has long experienced drought cycles. However, the frequency of droughts has increased considerably since 2005, tripling from once every six years to once every three years in the east. This is not a new problem; non-profits, development organizations, and scientists have been warning about it for over a decade. As early as 2012, the US development agency USAID estimated that southern Ethiopia was receiving 15 to 20% less rainfall than in the 1970s.
There have even been tales of Arabian camels, known as dromedaries, losing their humps – the fat deposits that give moisture so camels do not need to drink water for extended periods of time. Many experts attribute the Horn of Africa’s drought to climate change. Recent research conducted by the University of California’s Santa Barbara Climate Hazards Center concluded that a lack of rainfall in the region was mostly due to water in the western Pacific Ocean warming up — a phenomenon known as La Nia.
As the water heats up, so does the air above Indonesia. It is routed to East Africa and sinks after clashing with air traveling the other way from the Atlantic. This sinking air is responsible for the hot, dry weather that rejects moisture from the Indian Ocean. The drought is anticipated to be a primary issue when the United Nations launches its convention to battle desertification on Monday in the Ivory Coast’s capital city of Abidjan.
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