Several UN and other aid agencies issued appeals for the Eastern African drought that has affected millions.
Here are the statements and press releases made, in the past two days( July 8 and 9):
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Statements by Ms. Valerie Amos, head of UN-OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, at the end of her two days visit to Ethiopia
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A press release and briefing note from UNHCR after its head made a two days visit to Ethiopia
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Appeal from UNICEFUnited Nations Children’s Fund)
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Joint Appeal by FAO(Food and Agriculture Organization), WFP(World Food Program) and Oxfam
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Appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) – a consortium of 14 UK aid agencies
Note: It is to be recalled that the Ethiopian government launched a humanitarian appeal for 3.2 million people last April, it is only three quarter of the needed aid provided to date. The government and humanitarian partners are expected to release the outcome of the recent need assessment survey in the coming days.
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Statement by Ms. Valerie Amos, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
Press Conference in Addis Ababa, 9 July 2011
Good evening everyone and thank you very much for joining us on a Saturday evening.
The Horn of Africa is once again in the grip of a severe drought. I have just come back from the Somali Region, where I met the regional president, and visited an affected community in Bisle kebele. I spoke to women who had walked for five hours with their children to get help – food assistance and health care. More and more children are malnourished. People have lost their livestock and now have no means of support. Everyone I met spoke of the lack of water and the impact it is having on their day to day lives. Their very way of life is at risk. And whilst we all knew we need to do more now, we also need to plan for the longer term – to help people rebuild their lives when the situation improves.
Access to water and sustainable ways of harvesting rainwater in particular need to be developed in drought-prone areas to reduce reliance on water trucking, which is expensive and
unsustainable.
Communities need better access to basic health services to stop preventable diseases from taking a higher toll on an already weakened population.
And children need to be kept in school. Schools need water and sanitation, so that they are not forced to close during periods of crisis.
It is the poorest who are the most vulnerable and I welcome the emphasis put by the Government on longer-term development and the need to build the overall resilience of the people.
Other countries in the region – Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda – are also suffering from the impact of the drought and we have seen thousands of Somalis fleeing across the border into Ethiopia and Kenya. We will need to increase our efforts in all these countries to get to those who most need our help. And we will have to ask our donors to do more. They have been generous with Ethiopia and I hope that that generosity will continue and extend to the neighbouring countries.
Thank you very much and I’m very happy to take your questions.
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USD 136.3 million needed to save lives in the Horn of Africa – UNHCR
Press Releases, 8 July 2011
GENEVA, July 08 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency is seeking additional funds to ease the plight of Somali refugees in neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti amid deteriorating conditions and growing displacement from Somalia.
In an urgent appeal, issued today, UNHCR said US$ 136.3 million was needed to address the life-saving needs of up to 90,000 new arrivals in Ethiopia as well as ongoing arrivals in Djibouti and Kenya until the end of the year.
“In Dollo Ado I saw with my own eyes the enormous suffering of the Somali people trying to reach safety and food. Refugee children are dying and their mothers, reduced to walking
The UN refugee agency estimates that a quarter of Somalia’s 7.5 million population is now either internally displaced or living outside the country as refugees. Relentless violence compounded by devastating drought has forced more than 135,000 Somalis to flee so far this year. In June alone, 55,000 people fled to Kenya and Ethiopia, three times the number of people who fled in May. The influx continues unabated and malnutrition rates among the new arrivals are the highest seen in decades.
The Somali refugees are arriving in an appalling state of health, dehydrated and severely malnourished, especially children. Malnutrition rates among newly-arriving refugee children under the age of five range from 40 to 50 per cent.
The massive influx is creating enormous challenges and has stretched the capacity of the Kenyan and Ethiopian authorities and of UNHCR to screen, register and shelter new arrivals.
In Somalia and neighbouring countries, UNHCR and its partners are struggling to respond fully and effectively to the protection and assistance needs of some 750,000 Somali refugees and 1.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs).
Urgent funding is needed for UNHCR’s existing and supplementary requirements for Somali refugees to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in the Horn of Africa.
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Horn of Africa crisis overwhelms aid efforts on the Ethiopia-Somalia border, urgent help needed – UNHCR
Briefing Notes, 8 July 2011
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 8 July 2011, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
UNHCR is warning today that humanitarian efforts to help newly arriving Somali refugees in south-east Ethiopia are at risk of being overwhelmed without a more rapid and robust
The High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, visited the Dollo Ado area of south-east Ethiopia on Thursday. He heard from mothers who had lost children during the journey from central Somalia. He witnessed the anguish of people who had been forced to leave sick family members behind. He also spoke to humanitarian workers who deal with the new arrivals, and urged them to speed up help to the most needy.
Since the start of the year, 54,000 Somalis have crossed into this area of Ethiopia. Rates of arrival have accelerated in recent weeks to around 1,700 people per day. Malnutrition rates are alarmingly high among the most recent arrivals. At least 50 per cent of children are either moderately or severely malnourished. Similar rates are being recorded in Kenya.
Humanitarian agencies and the government refugee structure are struggling to cope with the inflow. Currently, the number of arrivals in the Dollo Ado area is outpacing registration capacity. Systems for meeting the food and health needs are close to buckling. Electricity for pumping water to camps is in short supply because overcast skies mean solar panels can’t produce enough energy. A new camp in the area, at Kobe, was opened several weeks ago. But it is already nearing its full capacity of 20,000 people. All these problems can be addressed if we receive adequate resources.
During yesterday’s visit, the High Commissioner’s delegation saw large numbers of new arrivals waiting for registration and ration cards. Most of the newcomers are from the Bay region of Somalia, to the west of Mogadishu. In some cases, people were said to have walked for up to 30 days to reach safety in Dollo Ado.
The drought crisis in the Horn of Africa is affecting Ethiopia, Kenya, and central and southern Somalia. However it is in Somalia that its impact has been most pronounced. There, the fall in crop production has led to higher food prices. The situation for the civilian population is further compounded by an offensive by pro-government forces starting in February against Al-Shabaab insurgents near the Kenya and Ethiopia borders.
High Commissioner Guterres told reporters that humanitarian efforts were needed inside Somalia so that people didn’t have to leave the country to receive help. However, conflict prevents this from happening.
Kenya
Meanwhile in neighbouring Kenya, some 1,400 new Somali refugees continue to arrive in Dadaab refugee complex every day. Eighty per cent of them are women and children.
Our top priorities are to address the malnutrition and overcrowding in the camps. There is an urgent need for medical staff and nutritional items such as high energy and high protein therapeutic meals. The main challenge is to receive and rapidly stabilize Somali refugees arriving in extremely poor health conditions. Malnutrition rates among Somali children under the age of five arriving in Dadaab are around 30 per cent.
The existing three camps – Dagahaley, Ifo and Hagadera – were initially built for some 90,000 refugees in the early 1990s. They are now hosting four times that number. The new arrivals are pitching tents on the outskirts of the camps. Our teams in Dadaab estimate that some 65,000 Somali refugees live in these makeshift sites. We have been providing emergency health services and temporary shelter, pitching tents, trucking in water and installing more water taps.
We estimate that a quarter of Somalia’s 7.5 million population is now either internally displaced or living outside the country as refugees. The drought is compounded by prevailing violence in southern and central parts of the country.
There are now more than 750,000 Somali refugees living in the region, mostly in neighbouring Kenya (405,000), Yemen (187,000) and Ethiopia (110,000). Another 1.46 million are displaced within Somalia.
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Press release
NAIROBI/GENEVA/NEW YORK, 8 July 2011
UNICEF estimates that over two million young children are malnourished and in need of urgent life-saving actions, if they are to survive conditions in drought-affected countries in the Horn of Africa. Half a million of those children are facing imminent life-threatening conditions, with long lasting consequences to their physical and mental development.
This crisis is being called the worst for 50 years, in a region familiar with severe drought. Countries most seriously affected are Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Global acute malnutrition rates in Northern Kenya are now above 25 per cent with records reaching as high as nearly 40 per cent in the Turkana district. UNICEF estimates a total of 10 million people are already in need of humanitarian assistance.
High food prices and prolonged drought are worsening an already dire situation for thousands of families in need of food and water. Thousands of families are crossing the border from Somalia as emergency feeding centers are being set up by UNICEF and other humanitarian agencies in neighbouring countries. The refugee situation is growing with some 10,000 arriving every week in Dadaab on the border between Somalia and Kenya.
The threat of disease on already weakened young children is of particular concern and UNICEF is urgently setting up child immunization campaigns. UNICEF, government agencies, NGOs and other UN agencies will be working in the vital areas of water, food and sanitation in the coming days to ward off a massive emergency.
However funding shortfalls, and in some areas the denial of access, threaten to disrupt these essential services. UNICEF is asking for US$ 31.8 million for the coming three months to provide life-saving support to the millions of affected children and women.
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Stepping up to the Horn – Joint FAO/WFP/Oxfam statement
8 July 2011, Rome
From mega-emergencies, such as the earthquake in Haiti or the floods in Pakistan, to headline-grabbing humanitarian crises, such as the conflicts in Cote d’Ivoire or Libya, the international community has stepped up to help those impacted by disaster and tragedy over the last few years.
Unfortunately, “slow-onset” humanitarian crises, such as the worsening drought in the Horn in Africa, have not received the same attention, leaving millions of women, men and children vulnerable to devastating hunger and malnutrition.
Rather than waiting for a full-blown, life-threatening disaster, that will cost exponentially more in loss of lives, livelihoods and humanitarian interventions, we must act now to save those already suffering from hunger and malnutrition as we build resiliency and food security in the region.
Unfortunately, we are already behind the curve, having lost a narrow window of opportunity to begin building upon food security gains in the Horn of Africa following several seasons of successful rains and harvests that had reduced the number of hungry people.
Today, countries in the region are confronted with the failure of the short rains in late 2010 and negative trends that threaten the long rainy season in 2011. These conditions have already increased the number of severely food insecure people.
The number of those requiring emergency assistance has grown from 6.3 million in early 2011 to 10 million today – a 40 percent increase – in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda (Karamoja region). The majority of the newly affected people are reported to be in Kenya (1.2 million). In addition, the number of Somali refugees in camps in Kenya and Ethiopia has reached the unprecedented figure of about 517,000 people.
The good news is that we know what to do. In 2010, the humanitarian community created an Action Plan to address the root causes of food insecurity to bring resiliency to a region that has suffered from protracted crises for nearly three decades. This plan calls for a partnership between countries, humanitarian organizations and the development assistance community to link long-term development efforts with humanitarian assistance to build food security.
It is critical that we build household resilience, protect productive assets, reduce the scale of emergency assistance and put in place measures to avoid a similar crisis when rain inevitably fails in the future.
To ensure that complacency does not drive destiny in this region we therefore call for:
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Emergency and Sustainable Food Assistance – Full funding of emergency requirements to stop the current hunger and malnutrition from accelerating and support of safety net programs, such as school feeding and local purchase and P4P initiatives.
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Small farmer support – Immediate support to national food security plans to ensure that countries support the poorest farmers with essential assistance such as tools, seeds, fertilizers, food-based nutrition and the knowledge needed to boost agricultural production and sustain rural livelihoods.
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Proactive policy and risk reduction and investment – Supporting policies and investments that address core challenges such as climate change adaptation, preparedness and disaster risk reduction and management, rural livelihoods, productive infrastructure, production and marketing, institutions and governance, conflict resolution, pastoralist issues and access to essential health and education.
These efforts need to build upon national and regional frameworks and strategies, especially the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme led by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. Regional organizations will be crucial for mobilizing concerted action against threats to food and nutrition security. The African Union and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development, in particular, have an important role to play.
We recognize that emergencies in the Horn of Africa will not be stopped tomorrow. But we must seize the opportunity to break the chronic cycle of food insecurity and make sure that this is the last generation to be robbed of a future through the scourge of hunger and malnutrition.
We call on the international community to extend all the necessary political, moral and financial means required to comprehensively address the worsening crisis now affecting the Horn of Africa as we help nations in the region build a food secure destiny.
Jacques Diouf Josette Sheeran Barbara Stocking
Director-General Executive Director Chief Executive
FAO WFP Oxfam GB
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Disasters Emergency Committee
[Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is umbrella organization for 14 humanitarian aid agencies which are UK registered humanitarian charities.]
Friday, July 8, 2011
The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has announced details of the radio and television broadcasts to run today (Friday) to help more than 10 million people in the grip of the worst drought seen in parts of East Africa in over half a century.
DEC member agencies are urgently seeking to increase their work to help those at risk survive and put their lives back together.
Actor Jason Isaacs will present the appeal for ITV and actor and comedian Lenny Henry will front the BBC appeal. Broadcaster and journalist Kate Adie will voice the BBC radio appeal and actress Fay Ripley will voice the commercial radio appeal. Thousands of families have been caught up in the deepening crisis, trekking for days across parched scrubland from Somalia to Kenya – including barefoot children with no food or water.
Jason Isaacs said today:
“We are an incredibly kind and generous nation and we know the joy of giving. We wouldn’t walk past families and children suffering like this in our street and these really are our neighbours. So please give what you can. However much you can manage. Your money will make a difference”
Large areas of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia are affected and the DEC appeal also includes South Sudan, which celebrates its independence on Saturday July 9th 2011.
More than 1,300 people a day, the majority of them children, are arriving in the Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya near the border with Somalia. The Dadaab camp was already the world’s largest refugee camp with a population of 350,000 – larger than the city of Leicester.
With the next harvests in many areas expected to be poor there are serious concerns that the situation will spiral out of control unless action is taken now. The recent announcement by armed group El Shabab in Somalia that they will no longer restrict access by aid agencies potentially opens the door for a larger humanitarian response.
Disasters Emergency Committee Chief Executive Brendan Gormley said:
“Families including vulnerable children and the elderly have slowly seen their lives fall apart because of this devastating drought. Now is the time to galvanise our resources and try to prevent a tragedy unfolding by providing vital food, clean water and medical supplies.
“DEC member agencies and their partners are responding on the ground but we urgently need the public’s help to save more lives ”
Despite the enormous challenges of reaching those affected DEC agencies are already helping hundreds of thousands of people across East Africa with food, water, therapeutic feeding for malnourished children and medical treatment. The assistance delivered so far includes:
• CARE Ethiopia has reached 218,000 people with aid including food, water point rehabilitation, distribution of water treatment chemicals and hygiene promotion.
• Plan’s work in Ethiopia includes providing food, water, shelter, medical aid, child protection, education and psychosocial care.
• Kenya Red Cross’ work includes emergency food assistance for children and pregnant women; providing safe drinking water and community health services, rehabilitation of bore holes, livestock, and seed distribution. The Somali Red Crescent is operating 14 mobile health units and 30 static clinics in Somaliland and Puntland.
• ActionAid has helped more than 220,000 people this year in Kenya and Somaliland with food, water and income generating schemes targeting pastoralist communities in the most vulnerable villages.
To make a donation to the DEC East Africa Crisis Appeal call the 24 hour hotline on 0370 60 60 900, visit www.dec.org.uk or donate over the counter at any post office or high street bank, or send a cheque. You can also donate £5 by texting the word CRISIS to 70000.
Anyone wanting to stay up to date with developments in East Africa, the emergency response and the fundraising efforts can follow the DEC on Twitter or become a fan of ‘Disasters-Emergency-Committee-DEC’ on Facebook.
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Check previous posts on Hunger Archive of this blog.
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