$4.38 m sought for drought-affected people

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has appealed for US $4.38 million to provide food and clean water to some 55,000 Eritrean villagers affected by four consecutive years of drought. The money would be used to help affected people in 17 villages in Hagaz subdistrict for eight months, truck water to 10,000 people and build or rehabilitate water-points, boreholes and wells, the Federation said in a statement dated 28 January. Seeds and farming tools would also be distributed to 10,000 households while a project to encourage more water-efficient farming methods would be launched in coordination with the Eritrean government's Relief and Refugee Commission. "The situation is quite serious - the drought was so severe that [food] stocks were depleted," Andrei Neacsu, the Federation's regional information delegate in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN. "It is an emergency." The Secretary General of the Eritrean Red Cross, Sr Alganesh Kidane, said assessments had confirmed that all food reserves had been exhausted after four years of drought. "There is no doubt that previous Red Cross interventions have averted starvation, but another failed rainy season means the situation continues to worsen, and traditional coping mechanisms are being lost," she said. "More food relief is urgently needed." According to the Eritrean health ministry, 50 percent of all children were undernourished and rates of chronic malnutrition were as high as 20 percent in some regions. At 53 percent, the incidence of maternal malnutrition was one of the highest in the world, the Federation said. More than 80 percent of the Eritrean population is dependent on agriculture, and the chronic water shortage requires a more sustainable approach involving improvements to the water supply and new farming methods, according to the Federation. "It is vital to secure an integrated response that addresses the increasing lack of water," said Per Gunnar Jenssen, Head of the Federation's delegation in Asmara, said in the appeal statement. "We need to help communities to better manage their scarce water resources and train them in improved dry-land farming methods to prepare them for a future in which rainfall will remain low." "Forgotten disasters, such as drought and hunger, often fail to get the same level of attention," he added. "But in Eritrea, just as in the tsunami-hit countries, people's livelihoods are being destroyed, their coping mechanism eroded and their health threatened."