Category Archives: East Africa Food Crisis 2011

Chaltu Ushe, a widow and a mother of five children is hopeful about the future after owning her own ox as an EA 18/2011 beneficiary. She had to sell her cow to survive the drought. This ox will enable her to farm her land in the coming rainy season. Photo by Makeda Yohannes/ECS

By Makeda Yohannes/ECS

Before drought struck Ethiopia in 2011, Mulu Jaletu owned five oxen, enough to help his farm support his 12 children. But with no rain falling, his crops would often fail. As his money ran out, he was forced to sell one ox at a time so he could buy food for his family. Eventually he had sold all of his oxen.

Mulu and his older children had to walk four hours a day to work as daily laborers in the town center or on big farms. With those wages, they could only meet their basic needs—there wasn’t enough to save up for an ox for the next rainy season. Mulu gave up hoping. He thought he and his family would never be able to farm on their own land again.

Other subsistence farmers in the town of Meki, in Ethiopia’s Oromiya region, were facing the same dilemma. Everything they had was tied up in their small plots of land and their livestock. The successive droughts cost them their oxen, cows, goats and sheep.

Many farmers resorted to borrowing an ox from another farmer in return for ploughing his land before their own. While this arrangement enabled them to work in their farms, it would often limit their ability to make good use of the planting season.

With funds from Caritas members worldwide, the Diocese of Meki helped farmers restock their herds. “The process was fair,” says a farmer named Ebba Gisha. “They selected the poor who did not even own a chicken and those who had land but needed an ox to plough it with. The whole community was part of the selection process.

“I am very happy to be selected and to now have my own ox,” Ebba continues. “This will not only help me to farm my own land but would also benefit my children.”

Another beneficiary is Chaltu Ushe, a widow and a mother of five children. Like many poor farmers, she did not have an ox of her own. She had one cow and fed her family with the income she got by selling the cow’s milk and some vegetables she grew in her backyard. With the drought, she was no longer able to grow vegetables and had to sell her cow to buy food.

She is very happy to have been selected for the programme: “I can use the ox I got from the church to farm my own land and earn income that will improve the life of my family.”

Mulu is happy too. “I am now stronger than ever,” he says. “I have hope. I am all set to work hard in the coming rainy season and harvest.”

Khalid Salat Shikh Ali (7), who lives in Belet Xaawo in Somalia after being forced to flee his home due to fighting in the country (Kim Haughton / Trócaire)

Drought and conflict grip Somalia, making it one of the most challenging environments in the world for humanitarian operations. Lack of governance or structures mean the task of providing aid is even tougher. Somalia doesn’t just need aid, it needs a way out of this catastrophe.

Bishop Giorgio Bertin of Caritas Somalia and Caritas Djibouti is in the United States to draw attention to the broader issues of the Somalia crisis at the UN and with Caritas partners and Catholic Church. He has been leading relief efforts on behalf Caritas in Somalia as famine was declared in parts of the country last July.

“After 21 years with no governance, Somalia needs law and order,” says Bishop Bertin. “We need to search more carefully to see what options there are for order, stability, and peace.

“We hear lots about piracy and the refugee crisis, but not about the people who are suffering there. We have a moral duty to say more about what we know, what we see, what we hear from the people.”

“If we say Somalia is a failed state, where are the black holes?” he says. “The United Nations roadmap is at least a step. We need rule of law. With piracy, solutions are not just on the sea, but on the land; a state must be built before piracy can be addressed comprehensively.”

Four million people in Somalia still need food relief. The famine has receded in three areas but continues in Middle Shabelle as well as among those people forced from their homes in Afgoye and Mogadishu.

In Somalia, Caritas currently provides food and tents to needy people, along with water pumps, educational fees, solar kits for rural schools and health care.

Bishop Bertin says that problems with delivering aid will remain until progress towards peace is made.

“After 15 peace conferences over the years still we’re waiting for some solution, some genuine opportunity to move out from chaos,” he says. The British Prime Minister David Cameron is planning a meeting to discuss the security challenges that Somalia poses to its people and the world at large.

“It’s a hard job that needs serious partners. A solution will come to Somalia through the Somali people,” says Bertin. “We must work at it, be insistent that we can achieve it.”

“Do I believe peace can come? Yes. I have faith in God absolutely, but also faith in human beings,” says Bishop Bertin. “So with faith, trust, hope I see the peace that’s possible. We can find the future that Somalis need and want.”

Data sources: the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) for Somalia and the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET).

In the Miyo area of Ethiopia, Tome Ana received food, as well as money for her livestock, as part of a “destocking” programme. Photo: Val Morgan/SCIAF

By Val Morgan

What it is like to be hungry and facing a slow death by starvation? What it is like to see our family’s assets disappear, our children lose weight and our spouse join us in worrying how bad the future might just get? In early October 2011, I was brought a bit closer to these realities when I visited southern Ethiopia.

The situation is truly desperate. People are going hungry, cattle are dying in large numbers, water sources and grazing land have all but disappeared, and the people don’t know whether they have a future.

It has not rained in many parts of the Borena zone of Oromia region in southern Ethiopia since March 2010. Around 4.5 million people are in need of emergency food aid, and a quarter of a million livestock have already died. Last week I met many people in need of food aid. I saw for myself the decaying carcasses of cattle, many just left by the side of the road.
Continue reading →

In the Borena area of Ethiopia, SCIAF is helping herders keep healthy livestock and sell other animals. Photo by Val Morgan/SCIAF

By Val Morgan, Media Officer for SCIAF

On some days in the field, I almost despair. It was a red-hot morning and we drove two hours to see a cattle feeding centre and destocking programme in Miyo, a village in southern Ethiopia. The more we drove the drier the landscape became until eventually it was totally barren, just dust and stones.

As we arrived at our destination on the top of a hill there were panoramic views all around us. I was told that three years ago this area used to be a vibrant area for farmers and herders with crops and precious grassland on the hills all around me. Now there was nothing.

We met our local guide, a young man from our partner, GPDI. He started by telling us about the animal feeding centre which SCIAF (Caritas Scotland) is supporting.

It may seem strange to be feeding animals in a time of drought, but it is perfectly logical. If you don’t keep alive the animals that the people depend upon for their food and income, and they die, the people will become totally dependent on humanitarian aid, even if it does rain. If a family has livestock and the rains do come, then they will be able to recover and will become independent and self-sustaining again. Continue reading →

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters.” It’s a phrase known to Christians around the world, one of the most beloved verses of a beloved psalm.

It was the psalm Pope Benedict XVI referred to during his weekly audience Wednesday 5 October which ended with an appeal to the world not to forget East Africa,  where drought has turn green pastures brown and made water scarce.

Crops have failed; herdsmen have watched  their goats and cattle grow thinner and die. Tens of thousands of families walked for weeks to reach refugee camps, or anywhere with water. Continue reading →