Kenya Appeals for International Aid as Drought Threatens Mass Famine
SputnikNews.com
12.02.2017
Kenya’s government has declared the drought gripping the country a national disaster and appealed for international aid.
With up to half the country affected by the drought that has spread across East Africa, the hungriest are resorting to eating bugs and toxic wild foods. Twenty-three of the country’s 47 counties are facing drought conditions, and these numbers will rise, Secretary General of Kenya’s Red Cross Society Abbas Gullet said.
“Indications are that the April 2017 long rains may not be sufficient. It is therefore our fundamental responsibility to assist the central and county governments to quickly respond to the plight of the affected communities,” he added.
Some 2.7 million people could face starvation without aid, the Red Cross warned.
The drought is blamed on last year’s El Nino, which limited the 2016 spring and fall rains. This year’s unusually high temperatures are only exacerbating the problem.
But El Nino is not the only factor: Kenya has been facing encroaching desertification for some time now, Hilda Mukui, former head of agriculture in Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, explained.
“We are now facing severe effects of desertification because we are cutting down more trees than we can plant,” she told Inter Press Service (ISP). Despite a development plan, Vision 2030, that calls for a billion trees to be planted in the country before 2030, little has been done, she said.
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