Kenya: Drought beckons in the neglected north

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

A drought in northern Kenya is getting increasingly severe, leaving communities facing critical water shortages. Alun McDonald reports from Wajir district.

We arrived at the water station as the last drops ran out. An Oxfam truck had just delivered 15,000 litres of water, but it was all collected so quickly that dozens of men still waited empty-handed. Unfilled jerry cans lined up in the dust, as the heat of the midday sun bore down on the thirsty crowd.

“What can we do now?” asked Abdi Mohammed, a father of four in his mid-40s who walked the four miles from his village to search for water early that morning. “The nearest other water point is 40 kilometres away, and who knows if there is any left there either. My children are at home - they need water, and there has been no rain here since last year.”

I didn’t know the answer. The Oxfam trucks come here three times a week, but every day there are more people queuing for water and the trucks can’t meet the demand. Like the parched land in this northeastern corner of Kenya, funds are quickly drying up. Money for the trucks is set to run out within a month, and the next rainy season is not due until October. But the last rains failed, and with the seasons becoming increasingly unpredictable, there is no guarantee that these rains won’t do the same.

This remote rural region of Kenya has been neglected and under-developed for decades. Now, as the climate changes and the droughts become more frequent, communities are struggling to cope with the shortage of water.

Most people in Britain use around 150 litres of water a day. In the vast camps from conflicts such as Darfur and Congo, refugees have to make do with just 10-15 litres a day. But in some parts of Wajir, people say they are now surviving on less than five litres a day - about the same used up by one flush of a toilet.  

Animals get even less, and the cattle and camels on which Wajir’s pastoralist communities depend for income and food are growing weaker by the day. Many people have taken their cattle across the border into Ethiopia and conflict-torn Somalia, in the desperate search for water and pasture. Even there, grazing lands are scarce and competition with local communities is increasingly leading to violent conflicts.

One local chief told me that a third of the men in his village have now left. “All of our healthy animals have been taken over the border to try and save them.”

But the absence of the cattle has serious consequences - particularly for the local children.

“Milk from cows and camels forms a vital part of child nutrition here. But now the animals are gone and the children don’t get milk anymore,” laments Ibrahim Adan, a father of five children, the youngest just one year old. A poor diet lacking milk and protein has led to rising concerns about malnutrition in the area - a recent survey found one in three children under five years old to be malnourished.

Children are also suffering from increased cases of diarrhoea as the lack of water means they cannot wash their hands before eating. Education is similarly affected, as without cattle and an income, parents are finding it harder to pay school fees.

“I’ve tried to buy milk in the market instead,” Ibrahim continues, “but these days it’s so scarce and very expensive.”

“The price of a single bottle of milk has risen from 25 shillings (20p) to nearly 100 shillings (80p) in the past few months,” according to Mohamed, a local tradesman. “The price has never been that high before. Sugar, maize and other essentials have also doubled in price recently. People cannot afford it.”

The market price for livestock, on the other hand, falls lower by the day. But people are still forced to sell - either out of fear that their animals will soon die and be worth nothing, or to sacrifice them for the sake of the rest of the herd.

“Now is a terrible time to sell animals as the price is so low,” says Rashid Aran Omer, a pastoralist from Lokolle. “But I have had to sell my camels and goats, just so that I can raise money to pay for extra water to try and keep my cows alive. Fortunately not many animals have died so far, but the situation is getting worse and it is only a matter of time. Unless we get emergency help we are going to see humans and livestock start dying very soon.”

In pictures: Drought in Kenya