I have lived in Ethiopia and can only recall its beauty. Thus, it is difficult for me to imagine that one of the most dramatic and damaging natural disasters on a human scale in the past 50 or more years is happening around that region. Yet, most are unaware of it.
Today, in the Horn of Africa, starvation, drought and, even worse, famine loom, threatening the lives of more than 10 million people. The USAid-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net) describes it as one of the world’s most severe foot shortages caused by the failed rains, a condition complicated by war in nations like Somalia.
This unusually dry rainy season combined with rising food prices has led to severe food shortages in countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. In some parts of Kenya, prices for food are up 80 percent higher than the five-year average, while in Ethiopia, the consumer price has increased nearly 41 percent. Tens of thousands of people have left their homes in search of water and food.
In Somalia, for example, some 1,200 Somalis are crossing the border into Kenya everyday where, near the town of Dadaab, the world’s biggest refugee camp has developed (50 km, about the size of Cleveland). With the lack of water, cattle and sheep are dying at higher rates than usual, reaching up to 60 percent mortality in some areas which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of farm animals dead.
The drought in some regions is the worst seen in the past 60 years. Western nations, however, act as if it is a sudden or recent occurrence. The reality is that this did not just appear and is completely preventable. This past April, wealthy nations were warned by international aid agencies that 8 million people were facing severe food shortages and no action was taken. Now, just three months later, the figure has increased by 2 million.
Child malnutrition rates in the worst areas are more than double and continue to grow, along with mortality rates among children. More than 50 percent of the Somali children in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps are malnourished.
It is difficult to comprehend how such could avoid national attention as being worthy of news coverage. But then again, I can since news seems to present to the world merely a Potemkin, or mythical, window into a world of make-believe. –torrance t. stephens, ph.d.
