Thousands in need of food and water, says UN

An estimated 28,650 people in Djibouti are experiencing severe food and water shortages, due to a drought that has depleted pastures and led to widespread livestock deaths, the UN’s humanitarian agency said on Friday. "The income of households [in Djibouti] is dependent almost entirely on the health and productivity of their livestock," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report. "Since livestock productivity has been undermined by the consecutive deteriorating seasons, household income and food access has been severely constrained," it added. According to the report, Djibouti’s coastal pastures and water sources have also been overburdened by herders from the neighbouring, drought-affected countries of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea. It said a therapeutic-feeding programme was urgently needed, to feed 5,730 malnourished children under the age of five for the next six months. Clean water also had to be supplied to 18,000 drought-affected people for the same period. OCHA’s report also called for medical assistance for 5,000 pastoralists who were now susceptible to diseases. It also said that veterinary support and concentrated animal feed for 50,000 livestock were needed. Djibouti’s government, which asked for international help on 9 April, has already begun an emergency programme of water provision to people in a southeastern area known as the Roadside Pastoral Sub-Zone, according to the OCHA report. The UN country team in Djibouti was preparing an inter-agency flash appeal to respond to the immediate and medium-term needs of the drought-affected population, the agency added. Meanwhile, OCHA said that both the government and the UN World Food Programme were distributing 421 mt of food aid, equivalent to one month’s full rations, which would extend the previous food distribution by one month until the end of May.