The rain has begun on schedule in north-eastern Kenya, bringing the first real precipitation that many people in the semi-arid region have seen for months, if not years. But while eagerly anticipated, it’s both a blessing and a curse. Report by Tim Ledwith. NAIROBI, Kenya, 26 October 2011.
VIDEO: October 2011 - UNICEF reports on the challenge of safe-water access for both refugees and pastoralists in north-eastern Kenya, who are affected by prolonged drought in the region and conflict in neighbouring Somalia.
The rain is a blessing because it raises hopes of relief from the prolonged regional drought that has destroyed harvests, killed livestock and worsened shortages of food and water for the past two years. It’s a curse because the parched land can’t absorb sudden downpours, which increase the risk of flooding and waterborne disease.
Even if this year’s ‘short rains’ from October to December prove normal, their positive impact will only be felt in 2012, after the next harvest. That leaves not only Kenya’s north-east, but the entire Horn of Africa, in dire need of food assistance for months to come.
As always in such situations, children are the most vulnerable. And as worrying as the food-security situation is, access to safe water also remains a matter of life and death here.
Aid for refugees in transit
Two days before the rains came, the scale of this challenge was as evident as the pervasive dust at the vast refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya. Located about 100 kilometres from the Kenya-Somalia border, the camps now house over 450,000 people. A hundred thousand of them have fled famine and conflict in southern Somalia since June. More than half are children.
Many Somali refugees arrive at Dadaab after trekking for days or weeks through a perilous, desert-like landscape. To meet their immediate needs, UNICEF and its partner organizations are providing them with access to safe water while they’re in transit inside Kenya. The aid continues once they’ve settled in the camps or nearby host communities.
Since July, this effort has reached 936,000 people, including 514,000 children, through a combination of boreholes, wells, water trucking, and installation or rehabilitation of water-supply systems. Despite such far-reaching initiatives, though, there are still children in the Dadaab camps suffering from exposure to unsafe water.
Read the full report by Tim Ledwith on our blog (here)