EAST AFRICA: 130 children died this week in a famine largely ignored by the developed world, writes Joe Humphreys
Up to 1.5 million children and 200,000 mothers are at immediate risk of starvation in drought-stricken East Africa, according to the Kenyan-based Irish charity, Icross.
The agency's director, Mike Meegan, who is working with the Kenyan government on emergency health programmes in the Rift Valley, said he had seen 130 children die this week in a famine largely ignored by the developed world.
"Reaching the people isn't a problem. Getting the resources is the problem. What is really needed is micronutrients and water," he told The Irish Times.
"We have about 55,000 kids with acute diarrhoea. Malnutrition has risen greatly," said Dr Meegan, who has also been involved in relief efforts in southern Sudan.
His plea for world governments to refocus their attention on Africa coincides with the publication of a UN report showing hunger and malnutrition are killing nearly six million children globally a year.
In its annual report, the Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that the goal of reducing the number of the world's hungry by half by the year 2015, set by the World Food Summit in 1996 and reinforced by the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, remained distant.
"If each of the developing regions continues to reduce hunger at the current pace, only South America and the Caribbean will reach the Millennium Development Goal target," said Jacques Diouf, the agency's director-general.
The report stated that providing children with adequate food was crucial for breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty. Stressing that wars also disrupted agricultural production and access to food, the report identified more than 200 million malnourished people in Sub-Saharan Africa, an increase of 30 million on a decade ago.
An Icross survey of pastoral nomads in the Kenyan desert estimated that 57 per cent of children below the age of five were malnourished last month, and 27 per cent of newborns were significantly below weight.
In addition, more than a third of mothers surveyed were below weight in the region, which has been affected by lower than normal rainfall and climate change.
Dr Meegan praised the work of 52 nurses seconded to the agency by the Kenyan ministry for health. Resisting the temptation to join many of their compatriots in seeking more lucrative employment in Europe and North America, they have stayed behind to work in difficult desert conditions for about €35 a month. In a separate development, aid agencies are warning of an escalating humanitarian crisis in war-torn Darfur in western Sudan.
Oxfam Ireland said security had broken down further, causing people to flee in greater numbers to its 21 camps in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.
The charity's Gereida camp, about 65km south of the regional capital Nyala, has seen around 150 families arriving each day this week, some having walked for several days through unsafe areas. Refugees are being provided with drinking water and sanitation facilities, while basic shelter has been created from plastic sheeting.
The latest wave of migration comes amid claims from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Darfur was descending into complete lawlessness.
Mr Annan told the Security Council that violence, killing and rape had increased in the region in September and October. Civilians have been forced out of villages, in some cases for the second or third time.
"The looming threat of complete lawlessness and anarchy draws nearer, particularly in western Darfur, as warlords, bandits and militia groups grow more aggressive," Mr Annan wrote. The only solution was to conclude a "framework peace agreement" in the forthcoming seventh round of African Union-led peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, he said. - (Additional reporting Reuters)