Floods could follow drought in East Africa
admin September 21st, 2009
With 500,000+ suffering from flooding in West Africa, East Africa is now facing drought and hunger, brought on by a combination of war and the failure of the rains.
There are already nearly 20m people in the region dependent on food aid and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is forecasting that this number will increase.
The Guardian carried a particularly disturbing picture and report on the disastrous effects that the drought was having on pastoralists.
And the FAO suggests that the current drought could be followed by floods, “The effects of El Niño, which usually brings heavy rains towards the end of the year, could make matters worse, resulting in floods and mudslides, destroying crops both in the field and in stores, increasing livestock losses and damaging infrastructure and housing.”
Food prices are rising as a result, “In Uganda and Kenya, for instance, prices of maize in June 2009 were almost double their level 24 months earlier. In Khartoum, Sudan, June 2009 prices of sorghum, another staple crop, were more than double their levels in June 2007. Similarly, prices in Mogadishu, Somalia, still remain higher than the pre-crisis period, despite declining since mid-2008.“
Conditions are probably worst for the people of Somalia, “According to FAO’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, Somalia is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in 18 years, with approximately half the population – an estimated 3.6 million people – in need of emergency livelihood and life-saving assistance. This includes 1.4 million rural people affected by the severe drought, about 655 000 urban poor facing high food and non-food prices, and 1.3 million internally displaced people, a result of escalating fighting and conflict.”
In Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea poor harvests are being reported and in Kenya forced migrations in search of water supplies and pasture have worsened livestock conditions, increased disease outbreaks and exacerbated resource-based conflicts among pastoralists.
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