Government triples estimate of drought-affected

The Eritrean government has nearly tripled its estimate of the number of people at risk of food shortages due to a severe drought currently hitting the country.

The Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission’s (ERREC) revised estimate, released last week, warned that 1.4 million people were now at risk — more than a third of the country's population.

In July, ERREC alerted the international and humanitarian community to the fact that Eritrea was facing the worst drought since the end of the liberation struggle in 1991. At that time, it estimated more than 524,000 people were at risk of food shortages due to the drought.

According to officials from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the drought has severely diminished food production in Eritrea's two breadbasket provinces — Gash Barka and Debub.

In order to avoid famine, ERREC and OCHA officials say food aid will be needed until the end of the next seasonal harvest in December 2003.

“Given that we know the severity of the situation now, if in four or five months we begin to see grossly emaciated children, it will be a failure of the international community, the government and the diaspora to respond adequately,” said Musa Bungudu, the UN's deputy humanitarian coordinator in Eritrea.

The annual rains from November to March which cover Eritrea’s coastal plains and eastern escarpment completely failed this year, adversely affecting crop production and pastoral conditions in the region. The March to June rains also failed. This is expected to lead to the failure of long-term crop production cycles.

The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Kenzo Oshima, is due to visit some of the worst hit areas during a visit to Eritrea which begins on Tuesday.