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Ethiopian children pay for food prices, drought

NAIROBI: Up to 6 million children under the age of five are at risk of malnutrition in Ethiopia because of rising cereal prices and the failure of rains, UNICEF has warned. Dry spells across much of the country since September 2007 have led to big food shortages, said humanitarian agencies.

In recent weeks, the effects have become visible, with increases in cases of kwashiorkor and severe acute malnutrition, particularly in southern Ethiopia, where 1,26,000 children require urgent therapeutic treatment. John Holmes, the U.N.’s Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said he was deeply concerned by Ethiopia’s food insecurity, the worst since the drought-related humanitarian crisis in 2003. With crops expected to fail following a poor March to May rainy season, which in good years allows farmers to produce a second crop, the situation was expected to worsen. “We will need a rapid scaling up of resources, especially food and nutritional supplies, to make increased life-saving aid a reality,” said Mr. Holmes.

Samuel Akale, a nutritionist with the government’s Disaster Prevention Agency, warned that the situation would get worse. “The number of severely malnourished will increase, and then they’ll die,” he said. Ethiopia has made gains in reducing dependency on food relief, and has cut its infant mortality rate by a quarter over the past five years. But with poverty still widespread, and the country host to 80 million people, the second largest population in sub-Saharan Africa, it remains deeply susceptible to the weather’s vagaries.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said besides the 8 million people supported by a long-term food safety net system, at least 3.4 million are in need of emergency humanitarian aid. It appealed for an urgent response from donors, citing a 1,83,000-tonne food shortfall, which would cost $147m to bridge.

UNICEF is asking for $50m, but there are concerns that the international focus on disasters in China and Burma would see the appeal fall short. An earlier request for $20m to fund its emergency nutrition programme raised $1m.

The worst hit areas are the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region, the Somalia region, and Oromiya, where the number of severely malnourished children admitted to one UNICEF-supported hospital increased from 26 to 61 over the past week. Livestock losses are also growing.

There is also increasing concern about the northern regions of Afar, Amhara and Tigray, where crop failure was expected. Rising global costs of fuel, fertilizer and staple foods are compounding the problem, especially for the poorest Ethiopians. In the six months to February, the price of maize and sorghum nearly doubled, according to the WFP, while wheat jumped by 54 per cent.

“The food supply in markets is limited, and many people cannot afford to buy what is needed for their families,” said Peter Smerdon, a WFP spokesman. “They have to resort to extreme survival strategies.” Nearby countries were experiencing similar difficulties in coping with drought. About 600,000 people in Uganda’s eastern Karamoja region are receiving food aid, while more than 2 million Somalis, many of them displaced by war, are reliant on humanitarian relief. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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