The International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that without action, rising food insecurity and increasingly widespread forced displacement would lead to a massive deterioration in the coming months.
The Horn of Africa is facing its worst drought in decades and has already accumulated numerous failed rainy seasons, a phenomenon on top of conflict, insecurity, extreme weather conditions, the plague of desert locusts and the impact of the socio-economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to IOM, 3.5 million of the most vulnerable people live in Kenya, seven million in Somalia and another seven million in Ethiopia, nations where rural communities depend on natural resources that have been badly affected by the drying up of waterholes that support the population leaves without means of subsistence.
Thousands of hectares of crops have been destroyed and 1.4 million head of cattle died in Kenya alone last year, a situation that is causing tens of thousands of families to abandon their communities in search of food, water and pasture.
IOM data showed that the worst drought in Somalia in the last 40 years caused the movement of 2.9 million people and it is estimated that one million made this journey due to the seriousness of the situation that prompted the government to declare a state of emergency , will follow soon in November 2021.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the drought has devastated the lives and livelihoods of eight million people in Ethiopia, particularly in the south-western regions where a lack of essential fluids and food has claimed the lives of at least 1.5 million cattle .
For IOM, the needs of the population exceed the capacity to respond, so additional funding is urgently needed to save lives, restore livelihoods, prevent further displacement and reduce emergencies in the long term.
mem/crc