WARDER, Ethiopia Ethiopia will run out of emergency food aid for 7.8 million people hit by severe drought by the end of this month, the government and humanitarian groups said.
Successive failed rains blamed by meteorologists on fluctuations in ocean temperatures known as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) have created a series of severe back-to-back droughts in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa region.
In Ethiopia, the number of people now critically short of food is expected to rise by at least two million by next month, according to figures compiled by the government and its humanitarian partners.
Donors, international aid groups and the government say existing food aid for the current 7.8 million will run out as funds are critically short this year with Ethiopia receiving slightly more than half of the $930 million to meet requirements until July.
"We are in a dire situation," John Aylieff, the World Food Programme's representative in Ethiopia, said on Friday during a field trip to Warder in southeast Ethiopia, one of Ethiopia's hardest-hit areas.
"We've got food running out nationally at the end of June. That means the 7.8 million people who are in need of humanitarian food assistance in Ethiopia will see that distribution cut abruptly at the end of June," he added.
Humanitarian groups fear donor fatigue is weighing on efforts to meet requirements.
Famine in northeast Nigeria, together with South Sudan, Yemen and Somalia, constitute the worst humanitarian crisis the world has faced since 1945, the U.N. said in March.
"There is donor fatigue because there are a lot of crises," said Ahmed Al Meraikhi, the U.N. Secretary-General's humanitarian envoy.
Addis Ababa allocated $272 million extra in 2015 and a further $109 million last year from its own coffers to deal with the drought.
However the government said it faced difficulties in sustaining similar targets this year.
"Last year, we spent a lot of money to confront this type of drought. It is very challenging," said Mitiku Kassa, head of Ethiopia's National Disaster Risk Management Commission.
Across the Horn of Africa, close to 17 million people need humanitarian aid due to drought, including 2.6 million in Kenya and 3.2 million in Somalia, according to the U.N.
In the treeless plains littered with makeshift plastic homes in Ethiopia's Warder, bordering Somalia, displaced and destitute pastoralists said their entire herds had been decimated.
"We have had droughts before, but this time we have drought, diarrhea and disease," said Ardo Yusuf, a 49-year old mother who said her entire livestock had succumbed to illness.
uriman on June 11st, 2017 at 01:23 UTC »
China was like this which rolling famines that killed Millions until the government do something drastic which was to implemental one child policy. I remember people on this sub say how barbaric this was but this is exactly what was the intent behind that move.
From_A_Great_Height on June 10th, 2017 at 23:35 UTC »
So people understand what's happening here and in the rest of Africa, when they did the Live Aid concert for famine relief in 1984 Ethiopias population was 39 million people. They had so many children between then and now that in 2017 it's over 100 million.
They are projected to experience massive growth over the next fifty years, just like every other nation in Africa. In fact the recent U.N. population projections report from 2015 projects Africa to hit 2.2 billion people by 2050, and 4.4 billion by 2100. This growth rate won't be slowed by education or a drop in fertility simply because there are already so many young people in Africa right now in 2017 because of the growth rate there over the last couple of decades;
In fact there are so many young people in Africa right now that the average age in most African nations is about 17. For comparison the average age in Europe is 40. Over the next three decades Africas population will grow by about 1.3 billion. For comparison the population of the EU will decrease by about 100 million over that time period, since nearly all European nation are below replacement rates, some far below.
The bottom line is even if there was no impending pressure on global food supply from climate change, Africa's population growth would be unsustainable. Combined with climate change it will almost certainly end in a combination of wars and increased regional conflicts, starvation, economic disaster due to no jobs for hundreds of millions of people, environmental disaster, genocide, violent conflict over food and water, mass deaths and mass migration north into Europe.
badamache on June 10th, 2017 at 18:19 UTC »
Ethiopia's population has almost tripled since 1980.So yes, they need food and medical aid as a solution this year, but famines are going to continue until they get their population growth under control.