Feature - Saving the pastoralists

Hassen Farah stands in a dry, sandy 100-foot wide riverbed in southeastern Ethiopia. “Everywhere you look it is dry,” says the 54-year-old pastoralist. “Everywhere.” In Shinile, in Ethiopia's Somali region, they have already given a name to this current drought. They call it "nowhere to go". “This is worse than before,” says Hassen. “In the past we could travel with our animals to get water. Even in the worst times. But everywhere you go it is dry now. There is nothing for the animals to eat and without them we are nothing. We depend on our animals.” The previous day, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had made an international appeal to help 11.3 million people who face starvation next year unless aid is shipped in. The appeal has already sparked a response but Hassen’s plight goes far deeper than giving him food to keep his family alive. RELIANCE ON FOOD AID Hassen, like other pastoralists in the area, has seen his flock diminish through several years of poor rains. With it his status falls and his ability to keep his family alive. It means that he becomes more and more reliant on food aid. In Shinile, there is a four-month wait before another drop of rain may fall. Three bare-chested men chant as they drop twenty feet into a tiny well, bringing up buckets of dirty brown water. The drought has meant the water table has fallen even further. The pastoralists gathered at this watering point in the middle of the Harowe riverbed have walked some 30 km. They stop their desperately thirsty animals from over watering as the long walk back can kill them if they are bloated. The problem facing humanitarian organisations now is how to ensure that traditionally hardy pastoralists like Hassen can survive recurrent droughts. The challenge is to ensure any recovery is long lasting and not a quick fix that would mean massive interventions at the next sign of trouble. But even so immediate needs must be met. Hassen Abdullah, head of social affairs within the district, said government food aid to meet immediate needs had arrived but the distribution was woefully short. “If these people are not helped now then in the future they will become more dependent,” he said from his office in Shinile district, which has a population of 90,000 people. He estimates that 70,000 of them are in need of food aid. And throughout the Somali Region, the government estimates around a million people need food aid. EXACERBATING FACTORS A second, more deadly factor has also aggravated the situation. Fighting between ethnic groups has reached an alarming scale. Dozens of Issas and Afar have been killed in clashes over scarce water resources. A few kilometres away, the drought in Ethiopia is taking a different toll. Omer Hosh Maidane has taught the Koran to hundreds of children who have grown up in the village of Meto. But gradually, he says, the children are starting to drop out as the families move out in search of water. “There is an obvious change in the children,” Omer adds. “You can see the drought in the faces of the children. They have lost weight, they look thin, and their concentration is not the same because they are thinking about food.” He said that a third of his class had moved away and others will soon follow. Mohamed Ahmed, head of Save the Children UK Eastern Region, says the cumulative effects of recurrent droughts in Ethiopia have taken an extraordinary toll. Mohamed says that pastoralists need around 30 to 40 goats and sheep to be able to survive. Unlike farmers, their existence depends solely on livestock. But recurrent droughts have depleted stocks. REFOCUSING AID EFFORTS Shinile epitomises the problems that need to be addressed by the international community and the Ethiopian government which are now refocusing their aid efforts. Simply handing out food aid no longer works in places like Shinile. For pastoralists like Hassen, they must be able to recover their livelihoods so that they can cope during the droughts. “We will never get better by eating wheat,” says Hassen as he begins the long 30 km walk back to his village with his goats. “We survive by our animals. Without them we do not.”