The conditions are desperate. The UN warned that 50,000 children are in desperate need for support to stay alive. While another 300,000 children are critically malnourished (AFP, 2016).
The El Nino weather pattern happens when the temperature of the Pacific Ocean rises. El Nino will cause excessive rainfall in some areas of the world and drought in other areas. El Nino caused a dramatic shift in weather patterns leaving Ethiopia’s agricultural area to dry to support vegetation or livestock (AFP, 2016).
Ethiopia is not alone, more than half of South Africa have been declared a state of disaster after this year’s drought (AFP, 2016). This year’s weather is dryer than the drought of ’84 that killed over a million Ethiopians (James, 2016).
The greatest threat to the survival of too many Ethiopians today is donner fatigue. The timing of the drought crisis couldn’t be worse. The violence in the Middle East, the immense commitment donner have made to helping refugees escape Syria (James, 2016).
Five out of nine South African provinces are experiencing a dry crisis. Ethiopian farmer Borrie Erasmus was not able to plant the maze crop in his family farm for the first time in fifty years. The drought has cost Ethiopian farmers six hundred million dollars in lost revenues meanwhile their government can only afford nineteen million to assist the farmers. South Africa’s minister of agriculture suggests the country should begin taking preventative action against future droughts. Future droughts can be minimalized with investments in infrastructure to build dams and irrigation systems (Miller, 2016).
Ethiopia has established a strong food security program, a work for welfare program and has access to a world food reserve. The country’s food security program uses the train to transport food aid Djibouti and Addis Ababa. Meanwhile the Productive Safety Net Program employs six million Ethiopians to work to develop the country’s infrastructure. Productive Safety Net Program employees are paid in either money of food provisions (James, 2016).
Reoccurring drought has caused a cycle of catastrophe in Ethiopia. The country has already begun to move forward with infrastructure projects to provide long term solutions and prevent future famine.
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Save the Children
International charity has only three weeks left ro raise the money to save Ethiopia’s most vulnerable from starvation
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25%
of Ethiopia’s children were underweight before the drought
53%
of Ethiopia’s children between the ages of 5-14 are child laborers
The people of Ethiopia are in dire need for water. This year’s drought is the worst the country has seen in 50 years.
Save the Children is acting quickly to raise $245 million dollars to ensure Ethiopia’s most vulnerable children receive the emergency food support they need. The charity estimates 10 million people in Ethiopia are in need of food, 6 million children are hungry.
El Nino 2016 has devastated the country of Ethiopia. The extreme drought has left 5.8 million people in dire need of drinking water. The country’s food supply has dwindled. The drought has left farms to perish. The places where the crops and livestock once thrived have dried into lifeless fields of hunger and thirst.
Meet Aharah. She’s a seventeen year old mother from Adigrat, Tigray's. She and her daughter live with her grandmother and her siblings about eight miles outside the city. Today she brought her daughter in to the city’s clinic for her two-year old milestone visit. The nurse was concerned about the young child’s growth and began to measure the girl’s arm using a special tape. The child’s arm measure in the yellow range, the nurse announces “She is moderately malnourished.” Aharah broke out in tears as the news stung at the mother’s heart. There just isn’t enough food and already one of her siblings has passed.
Just a few weeks earlier the nurse said the exact same phase only days before Aharah’s youngest sister passed. This time thanks to the some rations left at the clinic by a private donner the nurse gives the young mother a small pack with hardly enough food to feed the young child for a day.
There’s hope that the aid packages will arrive later this week. The government just wasn’t ready for the immense scale of this year’s drought. The food distribution network is overwhelmed by the spike in demand. But food isn’t the only necessity driving down the toddler’s living conditions. Water supplies are incredibly low. It’s been almost a week since the child’s bathed. Included in the aid packages are much needed antiseptics to help calm the growing skin infections many residents are suffering from.
AFP,. (2016). 58,000 children 'facing death' in drought-hit Somalia. Aljazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/60000-kids-face-death-drought-hit-somalia-160209060858482.html
Central Intelligence Agency, The,. (2016). The World Factbook. Retrieved 23 February 2016, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html
Ethiopia. (2015). Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, 1p. 1.
Ethiopia. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/place/Ethiopia
James, J. (2016). Ethiopia drought: How can we let this happen again?. Aljazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/ethiopia-drought-happen-160121084103587.html
Miller, F. (2016). S Africa farmers devastated by El Nino drought. Aljazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/africa-farmers-devastated-el-nino-drought-160207103049477.html
Save the Children,. (2016). Ethiopia | Save the Children. Retrieved 23 February 2016, from https://ethiopia.savethechildren.net/
