IRIN Feature - Hunger takes a grip in West Pokot

Trudging from the Lolepo water point, three frail, old women headed for the shade of a thorn tree in the corner of a field, a kilometre from the Kiwawa Baptist centre in northwestern Kenya’s West Pokot district. Two of them, Chepokaptoyoy Lopusikow and Cheptoyo Lowoyamoi, both wrapped in tattered “shukas” or blankets and adorned with blue beads sown together to form a large plate around their thin necks, sat helplessly side by side on the grass. They looked anxious and uncertain of what the day would bring. The third one, Chepochemurian Lotapasia, preferring solitude, sat with her emaciated legs spread out and stared blankly into the field. “We are just waiting because if relief does not come, we will die,” Lopusikow, the more talkative of the three said. This remote region of northwestern Kenya has been without rain for over two years. The harsh rugged terrain means that the area is inaccessible to many relief agencies. Kenya’s assistant minister for finance Christopher Lomada told a public rally at the weekend that seven people had died recently from hunger. Local news organisations quoted him as saying that the district urgently needed emergency relief food “to stave off a human catastrophe”. The look of desperation in the eyes of the three old women is haunting. Younger members of their families, like so many other families in this parched district, have gone across the border, two kilometres away to Amudat in Uganda, in search of food. “When we get food we eat,” Lopusikow said. “But we give priority to the children, out of parental sympathy, because they cry pitifully and actually demand food.” Many of the community’s old people congregate around the Baptist mission, waiting in anticipation of help. “What can I eat, who will give me food?,” said 80 year-old Bomaluk Losiata, when asked when he last ate a meal. “With nothing to eat, to live each day is by luck.” Lack of mobility is a noticeable problem, caused not only by age but also by weakness due to hunger. Aitaruk who has three wives, ten children and many grandchildren, says his family has been living on wild seeds - loma in the local language - and herbs. “The last time I had a proper meal was last month during the last [food] distribution,” he said. His family received some 10 kg of maize during the distribution. The amount lasted four days. “Now one of my wives and some of my children have gone to Amudat to look for food,” he said. The aid, according to the community, was “a drop in the ocean”. Aitaruk’s family had just sold a goat the previous week at the throw-away price of US $4 instead of US $10-13. “We could buy at least two 10 kg tins of yellow maize in Amudat,” he said. “You see, in the retail shops around here there is nothing to buy.” The family is now left with less than 10 camels, a few goats and almost no cows which he says were stolen in a raid by Karamojong warriors from neighbouring Uganda. “We have never seen famine like this,” Aitaruk said. “In other famines, at least there is usually food in other areas like Kasei [also in West Pokot], but this time, there is no food anywhere.” The sale and slaughtering of their animals has also hit a snag because of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the district. “We fear taking milk or blood from the animals because they are sick and anyway, who can buy sick animals,” Aitaruk added. The cattle disease means West Pokot is currently under quarantine, area district commissioner Solomon Ouko said. He estimates 170,000-200,000 people are currently facing starvation in the district. “The situation is quite dire,” a WFP spokeswoman, who visited the area last week, said. “People are in need of more food.” She noted that the very old and children are hardest hit by the situation. “We are doing our best to help,” she added. The Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK), along with other partner agencies, is scheduled to start the July food distribution in the area this week “and this time I think the rations will be higher”, an ACK official said. He said the Kenyan government had donated some 3,000 mt of food, and WFP 5,000 mt. ACK says to counter the problem of inaccessibility in West Pokot, “we ensure that people do not move far away from the final distribution points, so the furthest in last month’s distribution was 10 km”. The official stressed that even if the rains come, rehabilitation aid will be necessary “because most of the people have lost their seeds and animals”. Life in the community is slowly grinding to a halt, leaving residents with no alternative other than to wait for relief food. “Relief should come soon and save us from starvation,” a partially blind old man, Acho Riongole, noted sadly.