The worst drought in decades threatens to leave
tens of millions of people in the region of eastern and southern Africa without enough food. In the three countries of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya alone, an estimated 15 million people are currently in need of urgent food assistance.
Canadian Red Cross CEO Conrad Sauvé, as well as Hossam Elsharkawi and other Canadian Red Cross representatives were in Ethiopia this week to meet with the Ethiopian Red Cross Society. Here are photos from their visit, including some of the drought-affected areas.
Millions of people have been left hungry due to drought in southern and eastern Africa. Representatives from the Canadian Red Cross recently visited drought-affected areas.
Visiting the drought-affected area of Woleyta where Canadian Red Cross and Ethiopian Red Cross representatives view a dried river bed as well as a dried dam, which had been built three years ago to help surrounding communities access water.
Visiting drought-affected areas, such as this well that had previously provided water to nearby communities.
A dried river bed, where water had previously helped nourish nearby communities.
Canadian Red Cross CEO Conrad Sauvé and the president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society Dr. Ahmed Reja Goush.
Hossam Elsharkawi, Vice President, International Operations at the Canadian Red Cross shared these impressions from Ethiopia:
We visited an area of Ethiopia that’s not even in the hardest hit, close to the Kenya border, which is very much drought affected. We drove for many, many hours on bad roads, or no roads, what you could see for miles and miles is this stream of people, mostly women and children carrying bright yellow jerry cans, five of them each, moving to the remaining water points to bring water to their communities.
You also see mixed with that hundreds and hundreds of cattle and sheep who were very visibly thin being herded by men to these same water points, which are very few and far between. People line up for hours, they wait their turn to get access to these points. Most of the rivers and streams and lakes were completely dried up.
We were told by some communities that they’ve stopped all school programs so children can help.
These communities are in survival mode. This is ground zero of climate change, this is not a scientific discussion. They feel it, they know it. They know things are not working. One community took us to see a project where they had built 15 mounds of earth to try and capture rainwater but all them had failed.
This is very real and horrendous.
I saw something similar in Kenya in 2007-2008, but I think what’s different this time is the sense that this is now affecting at least five countries, it’s quite spread geographically, going from Yemen all the way to Nigeria.
See more on how we've been working with the Ethiopian Red Cross Society to strengthen the emergency response capacities of four Red Cross National Societies in Africa.