PHOTO GALLERY
Animal carcasses littering the arid landscape of northeast Kenya are a reminder of the severity of the country’s worst drought in living memory.
Up to one million semi-nomadic herdsmen, such as Saddam Sura pictured here, are leaving the bush to go and live in camps near villages.
The deaths of their animals means they must abandon their traditional lifestyles for an uncertain future.
Copyright: WFP 2006/Bruno Stevens/Cosmos
Life has barely begun for eight-month-old Syeunze at the therapeutic feeding centre at Garissa regional hospital, but he already knows the pain of hunger.
Alarmingly high malnutrition rates among children represent the first warning signs that Kenya’s drought is threatening the lives of people not just animals.
Copyright: WFP 2006/Bruno Stevens/Cosmos
Ten-year-old Fatuma Madai Aden is also being cared for at the therapeutic feeding centre.
She is suffering from severe malunutrition and her weight has dropped to just 8 kg. The average weight for a ten-year-old eating a healthy diet is 32 kg.
Tesema Negash, WFP country director for Kenya, says that many drought-affected families, whether they rely on livestock or marginal farming, have completely lost their livelihoods.
Copyright: WFP 2006/Bruno Stevens/Cosmos
Increasingly, people have no choice but to rely on outside help to survive. Here, a private tanker brings water to the village of Wargaddud twice a week.
WFP needs US$225 million dollars to feed 3.5 million Kenyans. But a shortage of contributions forced the Agency to cut vegetable oil from its food ration in March.
Copyright: WFP 2006/Bruno Stevens/Cosmos
Makai Mahad is a so-called ‘drop-out’ – the name given to herdsmen who leave the bush to come and live in camps on the edge of villages.
Although he has lived through many droughts, Makai, like a lot of Kenyans, has been worn down by five consecutive poor seasons in which rains never arrived and crops withered and died.
Copyright: WFP 2006/Bruno Stevens/Cosmos
Hundreds of thousands of livestock, essential to local communities, have already perished.
Nur Ali Hilow drags a dead goat from his decimated herd onto a heap of carcasses two metres high.
Copyright: WFP 2006/Bruno Stevens/Cosmos
Even the hardiest of desert animals can barely find the strength to survive the drought.
Nomadic herdsmen try to drag a dying camel to a waterhole that possibly could save its life.
Copyright: WFP 2006/Bruno Stevens/Cosmos
At Mandera hospital in northeast Kenya, Faduma Sheikh Hassan sits with her son and husband and feeds her nine-month-old with enriched milk.
As the drought spreads and food becomes more scarce, many Kenyans will not be lucky enough to find food for themselves and their children.
On a recent trip to the northeast of the country, WFP’s Executive Director James Morris said: “These people have run out of water and food. Unless we reach them all very soon, they will run out of time.?
Copyright: WFP 2006/Bruno Stevens/Cosmos
