Families hard hit by food crisis

The crowd that filled Konso Mekane Yesus primary school in Karat town, 600km south of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, were not pupils, but hundreds of mothers and children forced by food shortages to queue for relief rations.

Waiting on 2 September, they each received a quarterly ration of 25kg of corn-soya blend and three litres of edible oil and information on child health.

"I became a beneficiary after my baby girl had fallen sick," 35-year old Bende Kemba said. "Her belly was swollen and she became thin."

Bende's 19-month old baby Gnezebe Ole was her fifth child. Difficulties in providing for the child forced her, three-months earlier, to register with the UN World Food Programme's (WFP) targeted supplementary feeding program.

The programme, which supports 5,502 mothers and malnourished children in Konso, is part of a child survival initiative that targets 5.8 million children under five and 1.6 million pregnant and lactating women in 325 districts of Ethiopia.

Failed rains

A drought hit Bende’s village of Nalaya Segen and the whole of Konso.

"The main rain falls from mid-February to mid-May [and] determines the success of crop production that year," said Gelebo Goltomo, chief administrator of Konso. "Failure of the main rains led to a nearly complete loss of the main season's harvest; most households in the district have run out of food since June."

Farmer Kusse Gelabo, a father of nine, has two hectares in Sorobo Kebele - a difficult mountainous terrain.

Previously, Kusse would harvest 50 quintals of sorghum from his farmland, but the February rains fell for only three days. Over the next months, he ploughed his farmland four times, hoping the rains would come. Nothing happened.

"I did not get anything at all," Kusse told Sir John Holmes, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, who was on a three-day mission Ethiopia.

Konso area already suffered chronic poverty, food insecurity and has a high population density, acute land shortage and poor soils.

"Even in normal rainfall years, about one third of the population is only able to feed themselves for a maximum of eight months," Gelebo said. "Drought is the major factor responsible for the emergency that now confronts the district, but soaring food prices are also partly responsible."

Food crisis

Holmes met farmers who had lost their crops to drought and visited an outpatient therapeutic and stabilisation centre run by Save The Children - US. He also witnessed food being distributed by the government to chronically food insecure people.

"Ethiopia is facing a food crisis that is one of the worst in the world, especially in terms of malnutrition among children," he said. "It is important that we make every effort to deal quickly and comprehensively with this tragedy."

Approximately 75,000 Ethiopian children have been directly affected by the drought and are at risk of severe acute malnutrition, while 4.6 million people throughout the country are receiving emergency food aid.

Ethiopia is facing a food crisis that is one of the worst in the world, especially in terms of malnutrition among children...it is important that we make every effort to deal quickly and comprehensively with this tragedy"

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the situation has worsened due to a shortage of emergency resources including ready-to-use therapeutic food, emergency relief food and other critical supplies.

In recent months, affected households have tried but in many cases found it hard to cope. Bende, for example, heavily depends on the local market where she sells firewood. Her sales, however, can no longer buy enough food for the family because prices have risen sharply since June - and she has to support a sick husband.

"I live while begging God and the government," she told IRIN at Karat on 1 September.

Admasu Assefa, the supplementary feeding coordinator in Konso said 85 percent of the 245,400 people in the district were in need of help but only 61 percent currently received relief. "Even better-off households only have a two months back-up," Admasu said. "Within a few months, the number will increase."

A screening exercise conducted by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in May found 1,991 malnourished mothers and children in the district, he added. That number rose by 160 percent during a follow-up screening in August.

Seeking more aid

The situation has been aggravated by inadequate funding, aid agencies said. WFP is facing a US$140 million funding shortfall while the Ethiopian government, other agencies and NGOs have equally been constrained by lack of resources.

Save the Children, for example, is seeking US$20 million to support its programmes, including feeding nearly 10,000 malnourished children in four regions. "The international aid effort has already saved thousands of children's lives," spokesperson David Throp said.

"We know that children could die, even after initial treatment for malnutrition, if we are not able to stabilise their health properly," he added.

"There is not enough money behind the aid operation to do this at the moment. Extra funding is also needed [to] re-establish ways for families to earn a living, so that they have enough money to see them through the crisis and beyond."

tw/eo/sr