‘Sima’ disrupts life equally in drought-ravaged Ethiopia
Food pipeline is breaking down
The Somali people of Ethiopia’s southeast have a name for the drought that has killed livestock, dried up wells and forced hundreds of thousands into camps: sima, which means “equalised”.
It’s an appropriate name, they say, because this drought has left no person untouched, spared no corner of their arid region. And it has also forced 7.8 million people to rely on emergency food handouts.
But by next month, that food will have run out, aid agencies said. Droughts are common in Ethiopia, and in past years the government and international community have mounted impressive efforts to curb starvation. This year though, Ethiopia is struggling to find money for food aid, say aid agencies.
“We’re looking at the food pipeline actually breaking, so the food is running out in about a month’s time,” said John Graham, country director for Save the Children. “After that, we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Once a global byword for starvation and poverty after a famine in 1984-85 killed hundreds of thousands, Ethiopia has seen its economy grow rapidly in the past decade. Health indicators such as infant mortality and malaria deaths have also improved.
A stronger economy allowed Ethiopia to spend an impressive $766-million (R9.9-billion) fighting one of its worst droughts in decades in 2015-16.
This year however, things are different.
Economic growth has slowed, due in part to protests spurred by long-simmering grievances against Ethiopia’s one-party state. Donors have also been distracted by other regional crises.
Ethiopia’s western neighbour, South Sudan, has suffered four months of famine, and extreme hunger is at its highest levels after more than three years of civil war.
Ethiopia by contrast has a strong government and is free from conflict. But with the situation so desperate in the region, donors are not responding to the country’s emergency as they have in the past, said Mitiku Kassa, head of Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission.
“They are stressed with the needs, especially from those countries which [have] declared famine. That is why it is underfunded, said Mitiku.”
In the drought-ravaged town of Warder, the hundreds of displaced families crowding a ramshackle camp say handouts of rice and sugar are becoming less frequent.
“Skipping meals is common,” said Halimo Halim, a grandmother living with her children in a shelter made of sticks and pieces of plastic.
About 465 000 people who have lost their livestock have migrated to an estimated 250 camps in the region.
The settlements are often located near water sources, but that presents its own problems.
In Warder, workers are present around the clock at nearby wells to make sure people drawing water chlorinate it before they drink it, lest they contract “acute watery diarrhoea”, which has broken out in the region.
Some aid workers say this is actually cholera, which Ethiopia has long been accused of covering up to protect its image.
If the international community does not send more money, Mitiku said the Ethiopian central government would be “forced” to tap its development budget for drought relief next month. But with a lead time of four months required to procure emergency food, the UN says that may be too late. –