Country's former breadbasket faces chronic hunger

Driving on the winding roads of Burundi's countryside, surrounded by such green and lush vegetation, it is hard to imagine that the country is in the midst of a serious food crisis. Entering the northern province of Kirundo, however, the vegetation becomes sparse. Further into the collines, or small local administrative units, the land turns dry and brittle. Cultivated fields have dried up, and there is hardly any livestock in the area. Most homes seem abandoned, just four brick walls and no roof. The few people one meets along the dusty roads carry jerry cans. This former breadbasket of Burundi and home to thousands of returnees has become a place of poverty and desolation. Kirundo Province, which used to supply beans, sorghum and cassava to the nation, now relies on handouts from its former customers. Of the total 580,000 inhabitants, about 300,000 are in urgent need of food aid. Joseph Nahimana, president of the Group of Kirundo Natives Association, has been fighting to improve living conditions for drought-affected people in his hometown since 2000. Although he commended the government's efforts to assist its citizens, Nahimana felt there is a need for more urgent action.

Farmers sit outside the Bugabira administrator's office in North West Kirundo, waiting for food distribution.

"There is an emergency situation in Kirundo," Nahimana said. "There is no time to lose when people are suffering. Some people think that 10 or 20 tonnes are needed to make a difference. Anything you can give - from 1 kg of beans or rice, to 100 francs - any food item helps. This is the kind of solidarity needed in Burundi today." Frequent drought Although the drought worsened in 2001 due to insufficient rainfall, increased demographic pressure and deforestation with the massive influx of returnees from the Tanzanian camps, Kirundo has a long history of cyclical periods of drought. Some go back to the 1940s, when Belgian colonialists introduced the drought-resistant cassava crop to local farmers. Kevin Doyle, head of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Kirundo and focal point for the coordination of aid, said the province was one of the hardest hit because it had been attacked by an agricultural disease that had practically wiped out the cassava crop in the region. "People had nothing to fall back on and lost all their harvest," he said. CRS has been present in Kirundo since the start of the drought in 2001. The charity is currently assisting 95,000 households in the area by organising seed fairs for the most vulnerable populations, such as the displaced, returnees, orphans and widows. At the seed fairs, local vendors are invited to sell their produce, and the beneficiaries are given coupons worth 8,000 francs (US $8) to purchase seeds of their choice or farming tools. CRS, in turn, pays the local vendors cash upon presentation of these coupons. In this manner, the project has injected over 2 billion Burundi francs ($2 million) into the local economy.

A man collects coupons at a CRS food fair in Kirundo.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) complements the CRS mission by distributing food to these populations, to ensure that the seeds are planted instead of eaten during times of scarcity. In Kirundo alone, WFP distributes food to 300,000 people on a monthly basis, said Isidore Nteturuye, WFP information officer in Bujumbura. "The target group is almost every person living in the affected area because of the persisting drought," he said. "It hit Bugabira first in 1999. The situation progressed slightly in 2001, then deteriorated in 2003, spreading to neighbouring hills to reach the critical situation we have today." Desperation However, in places like Cewe, a small locality in the Kirundo Commune, people would rather eat the beans than risk planting them. Due to the drought, all the crops have died, even the coffee beans, which are one of Burundi's leading exports. People have been forced to eat weeds and wild plants because no food has been grown in the past year. Emmanuel Ndayishimiye, head of Cewe Sector, had buried 28 people so far. "Most of the victims succumbed to other diseases, such as malaria, but only because their bodies were malnourished and they were too feeble to fight back," he said. Many people in Cewe had died in their homes from starvation. There was even talk of an old woman whose corpse was found in her home days after she died, being eaten by rats. "Those you see here are strong enough to come out to beg for food; most people are too weak to leave their homes," a bystander said. Guido Nahimana, a 22-year-old fisherman, said his wife starved to death after being without food for four days. "My wife was literally agonising when I left the house in search for urgent assistance," he said sadly. "I was in bad shape myself but managed to walk to the administrator's office, where he gave me some maize and porridge. But it was too late when I got home. Now, I am afraid my children will go next." His children had eaten nothing that day. Kirundo is a region with many lakes, such as Lake Cohoha, which separates Burundi from Rwanda. People like Nahimana used to live well from fishing. "You did not even need a net at times. You could just scoop up the fish with your bare hands," he said with a note of nostalgia.

Lake Gacamirinda in the northwestern region of Bugabira is slowly drying up due to drought

However, the lake has already shrunk in size by about 4 sq km. The drought in Kirundo has forced farmers and fishermen alike to sell most of their possessions, to the point that people have nicknamed the drought "Rusenyanzu", which in Kirundi means "that which destroys the houses". Cattle have been sold at half price to neighbouring provinces and replaced by the more drought-resistant goat. People have even gone to the extent of selling their roof tiles to buy food and been forced to move into huts with plastic sheeting. Fleeing hunger According to the International Actions by Churches Together (ACT), a Geneva-based Christian relief agency, the drought has caused at least 4,000 people, including newly repatriated families, to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. An estimated 10,000 children had dropped out of school. Pacfique Gahenda, 25, a lecturer at the Pedagogique Teachers' Training College in Cewe, said out of 637 students, only 460 still come to school. "Our schools need food assistance to encourage children to stay in school," he said. "We are not a poor region. If only it would rain, we could grow our own food." Sylvia Kabatessi, 47, mother of nine children, recently returned from the refugee camps in Tanzania only to find her hometown of Cewe severely hit by the drought. She has stopped farming for lack of rain, and five of her children have already abandoned school. "My husband and I have to travel as far as the border [with Rwanda] to see if we can get some crops there to re-sell in Burundi for a profit," Kabatessi said. "If we get some money, we buy food for one day, and the next we go hungry. If I get a kilo of maize, I have to make porridge instead of ugali [maizemeal], to have enough to feed my nine children." Joseph Ntirandekura, Kabatessi's husband, is also a farmer. "This place was very fertile before the drought, and before the war. We used to farm beans, sorghum and cassava in large quantities, but since the drought in 2000, we have not been able to grow anything. To make things worse, the mosaic disease hit the cassava," he said, adding that he had not eaten anything since morning. "My son left for Rwanda in search of a school where he can also get a meal." The commune of Bugabira has also been severely affected by the drought. Crowds of people had gathered at the communal administrator's office to ask for food. The sun was beating down relentlessly, and lying on the dusty ground were mainly women with small children in their laps, some of them breastfeeding. With drawn faces and little energy, they sat there quietly, swatting away insects.

Gerard Rugendintwaza, Bugabira Commune administrator, in his office in northern Kirundo

"This is what I have to deal with everyday," Gerard Rugendintwaza, the Bugabira administrator, said. "Every day people come to my office looking for food, and sometimes I have nothing to offer them. We no longer have a budget because we no longer collect taxes. People have stopped most commercial activities, so if they are not working, our vaults are empty. […] Sometimes, they bring me someone on the brink of death. I have to pay from my own pocket [for] some food at a nearby cafeteria, just to save that person's life." That day, however, was a lucky one. He had received eight tonnes of beans and maize from the government for distribution. In January, a joint government and UN survey, involving the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), showed that 1.5 million people were at risk due to prolonged drought. On 16 March, Nteturuye, the WFP information officer, said that the figures had since gone up. WFP was planning to assist an estimated 934,000 people in Burundi in 2006, distributing 9,600 metric tonnes of food per month, with the average monthly cost of the operations going slightly over $5 million. Although humanitarian agencies in the region refer to the present situation as a "severe food shortage", Burundi declared famine in five provinces in the north and east of the country in February. To respond to the crisis, the government set up an emergency fund to assist the drought-affected populations. Of the $168 million raised during a donor conference on 28 February this year, more than half - around $60 million - will be used to feed drought-stricken populations, said Pierre Claver Rurakamvye, the permanent secretary for the National Coordination of Aid in Burundi. "Burundi is faced with a catastrophe," he said. "This is an emergency situation where the priority is to save lives." Rurakamvye also underscored that assistance was ongoing and systematic: "Every time we receive assistance - whether it is money or food - we will organise a distribution in an efficient and transparent manner." Burundi has launched two initiatives in the fight to save its drought-affected populations. One is on a national scale, where the government deducts money from government employees' salaries to raise funds for food distribution. In addition, farmers and agriculturalists in non-affected areas are expected to contribute 100 francs a month. On the international level, the money raised during the February donor conference will go into a fiduciary fund. Rugendintwaza, the Bugabira administrator, is clinging to a promise, made by Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza during his visit to the area on 6 March, that food aid would soon flood the province. He pointed to the eight tonnes of beans and maize he received that day as evidence of better days to come. "Help is coming. The problem is, there are so many people in need of aid - 19,000 families in this area alone. We are told to pick the most vulnerable, but the problem is, drought has been here for some time, so those who could fend for themselves months ago are now vulnerable. It looks like everyone is hungry today," he said. As for Nahimana, of the Kirundo natives association, this situation had gone on for too long. "It is shocking, because it is a phenomenon that we cannot control in the immediate future," he said. "It hurts because if we could stop it, we would have done so long ago. It is a problem that calls for people to come together and find long-term solutions. It hurts because people have died, people have fled the country, children have massively dropped out of school - which endangers the future of this province and is a great loss to the country." In the meantime, communal adviser Severin Kayiburundi felt that every second counted. "If efforts are not combined soon to redress the situation," he said, "by May this year people will be dropping dead like flies."