|PIC1|With the World Food Programme warning of “absolutely catastrophic” consequences if aid is not delivered to worst hit areas in a matter of days, Action by Churches Together is joining in calls for immediate assistance to Kenya’s drought affected regions.

“The international community must wake up to the reality of this growing crisis before it is too late,” says Kirsten Engebak, area representative for Kenya, Somalia and Uganda for ACT member Norwegian Church Aid (NCA).

Engebak travelled to the Mandera district of northern Kenya recently as part of a two day visit to assess the scale of the crisis following reports from NCA’s partner, the Rural Agency for Community Integrated Development and Assistance (RACIDA), that the droughts were causing severe suffering and loss of life across much of the Horn of Africa.

“I was prepared for the worst – but what I saw almost cannot be described,” she said. “The situation is terrible. We are facing a disaster.”

According to Engebak, the countryside is awash with the carcasses of dead animals, with an estimated 60 per cent of livestock in the area already dead from the droughts. |TOP|

She warns: “More, if not all, remaining animals will die soon if help does not arrive quickly. There is absolutely nothing to eat whatsoever – for livestock or humans.”

An appeal was launched by ACT on Feb. 2 to raise US$2.4 million to respond to the Kenya droughts. The funds gathered to date are being used already to support the work of NCA and four other ACT members and their partners in Kenya.

NCA, together with RACIDA, is currently assisting drought-affected communities in central and western Mandera by providing access to water for human and livestock use as well as investigating more effective crop production in order to reduce the effects of current droughts and help prevent future droughts.

Assistance is urgently needed to help the communities deal with the crisis they are facing at this present time.

|AD|“I heard stories of families that once had owned 300 animals but who were now left with only two or three. This was more the norm than the exception. I did not see one blade of grass or one healthy tree during my journey of 230 kilometres through the desert. With no food for the animals, there is also no food for the pastoralists who mainly live on milk from the goats and camels. They are starving,” reports Engebak.

RACIDA is currently helping to provide food and water in the only hospital in Mandera for the area’s population of 300,000, with many people having to walk several kilometres to receive the assistance, Engebak reports.

“RACIDA is doing a terrific job with very limited means,” says Engebak. “Both the UN and other NGOs have also been able to assist the organization in their work to date. But the organization needs financial support if it is to continue its work here.”

“The people of Mandera need water now. If not, they will continue to face the enormous hardship that water collection represents,” Engebak explains.