Hungry families in East Africa

SOMEONE once said to me that the worst sight in the world is a hungry mother trying to feed a hungry, crying baby from an empty breast. In East Africa, and particularly Somalia, this is the scenario being played out each day now.
Mothers and fathers, having literally run out of options when it comes to providing the basics for their children, are burying them instead of being able to nurture them.
As a parent myself, I could imagine the despair to which parents were driven in this terrible struggle to survive.
I got to meet some of those parents, during a recent visit to Kenya and Somalia with former Irish President Mary Robinson, who is now the president of Oxfam International, and other Irish aid agencies.
We saw first hand the trauma experienced by exhausted people who were pouring into Kenya across the Somali border. They had been walking for days in some cases, supporting elderly parents, coaxing young children along and carrying young babies.
When families were lucky enough to reach the safety of Dadaab refugee camp, they were able to get food, water and shelter, along with medical attention for the severely malnourished. Thousands of people are now arriving in this camp each day. Every single coping mechanism they might have had is gone. They have typically sold their livestock, eaten or sold any crops and run out of money to buy food if it was available.
In Somalia itself, people are also desperate. In Dollow, Mrs Robinson received a very warm welcome, with many locals remembering her from 1992 when she visited the country. She is known there as ‘Dado’s mother’, after the region.
Our first stop was on the side of the road where a large group of exhausted women and children were settled under some trees. We spoke with Sadia Abdul, who had walked most of the way from Birbwell – 200km away. She had left behind conflict and any means of earning an income was gone.
The group were hungry and in desperate need of food and water. Many had the listless look of people who had gone through so much and were nearly too weak to travel further.
As we entered the village of Dollow, there was a reception party of boys and girls singing to welcome Mrs Robinson and signs saying how much they appreciated the Irish focus on their plight and hoped that we could make a difference for them.
At the clinic, we saw babies being weighed, measured and checked for malnutrition. Too many babies were small and underweight for their age.
The real worry now is that this is still early in the ‘hunger’ season. Hunger won’t peak until around October and the head of the clinic believed it could be worse this time around than it was in 1992.
The clinic is overwhelmed. Staff work from early in the morning until late at night and people are queuing when they open. The staff members give high-nutrition food, known as plumpy-nut, to those children who are most malnourished. However, as families have nothing else, they share this among themselves. This means no-one gets the proper nutrition.
Twenty-five-year-old Sodo Abdulahi Nuh was having her 14-month-old malnourished baby boy weighed. He registered just 7kg on the scale. She has three other children to care for too. Around six children die each week at this very clinic because they have no food.
I spoke with Sofia, who had walked 40km from Beladlow with her eight children. Her husband was killed in Mogadishu and she is now staying with a host family, who must be struggling desperately from this additional burden.
She didn’t know what she was going to do next but her priority was to try and get food for her family as they frequently miss meals.
Amina had walked 50km from Luk with her three-year-old daughter, Asha. She had already lost two children. All of her cattle had also died.
In Kenya too, families are running out of options. Karagi village in Turkana, Kenya has buried 40 of its people in the past six months, most of them children, and all due to hunger.
The most striking thing about Karagi is that we didn’t see one man of working age. These men have travelled very long distances to try and find water for their livestock – the only source of income they have. They send back money when they can. The village is entirely comprised of women, children and elderly men, who are on the brink of disaster. The sense of foreboding was palpable.
In Marsabit, we heard from 65-year-old Tabich Galgal. He simply said they have no food. Some members of the community are receiving food aid but they share what they have with others, so everyone is trying to survive on rations.
The frustration in Tabich’s voice was evident as he described how they had tried everything. It’s not that they are not doing all they can to eke out a living, it’s just that the drought has really placed such a huge burden on them, he said.
Elena Boru explained how the lack of water is having a devastating effect on women, who have to spend most of the day collecting it.
She explained there are plenty of people in the village more than willing and able to work, to do anything where they can provide for their families and she stressed the elderly must be taken care of.
Along our travels we saw very feeble and clearly malnourished older people – a shocking prospect considering all they have contributed to their communities during their lives.
Famine has now gripped parts of Somalia. This is the inevitable consequence of drought, climate change, conflict, entrenched poverty and lack of investment in development. Those are questions that must be addressed, in time, but first we have to deal with this humanitarian crisis. Twelve million lives are on the line but if we act right now, we can prevent further large-scale loss of life.
Oxfam is working right through the region, providing food, clean water and shelter and helping people to earn a living again. Through our programmes we intend to reach three million people.
At the moment, Oxfam is implementing the single largest nutrition programme in the capital city, Mogadishu, treating more than 12,000 severely malnourished children, pregnant women and those who are breastfeeding.
We are also providing water and sanitation for 300,000 internally displaced people and giving life-saving equipment to Somalia’s only functioning children’s hospital.
In Kenya and Ethiopia, we are giving people money through cash for work schemes to build water tanks and reservoirs. We are trucking in water supplies for 32,000 people in Ethiopia and treating the water for drinking, cooking, washing and keeping animals alive. We are helping people who have livestock to keep them healthy and vaccinated. We are digging and repairing wells and boreholes and providing sanitation and latrines.
However, we can’t do it alone. We need the help of governments and the public to stop this human catastrophe spreading and claiming greater numbers of lives. Otherwise we are condemning countless thousands of people to a needless death.
To support Oxfam Ireland’s appeal, log onto  www.oxfamireland.org, call 1850 30 40 55 or visit the Oxfam shop at 8 Parnell Street, Ennis.