Kenya Red Cross Appeals To Well-Wishers,Donors To Contribute Towards Addressing Hunger Crisis

KILIFI,Kenya, Mar, 27 – The Kenya Red Cross Society continues to appeal to organizations, donors and even individual Kenyans to continue raising awareness and help towards assisting more than 3.1 million Kenyans affected by the ongoing drought.

The situation according t the organization is getting worse with the situation said to have persisted for at lest three years now.

According to reports, more than 1.5 million livestock have died as a result of the drought with water and pasture becoming scarce.

According to Dr. Michael Ayiabei the Acting head of Disaster Management at Kenya Red Cross Society said countrywide the situation is getting worse with Coastal counties such as Lamu, Tana River Kilifi, Taita Taveta, Kilifi and Kwale having been hit by the disaster.

“…We are talking about 3.1 million people affected even though at times this county (Taita Taveta) is always mistaken that it’s doing fairly well but we forget there are some pockets which are badly off and this is one of them,” he said.

He spoke while supervising the distribution of relief food donated by Shree Sanatan Dhaharam Sabha organization from Nairobi at Mlilo in Taita Taveta County.

The distribution exercise also targeted Mlilo area, Kamtonga, and two centers in Taveta Sub County which have been highly affected by the drought.

Ayiabei also cited that counties in Norther Kenya and North Rift regions are also battling the ongoing drought.

“Besides people not having food their shelters are getting affected again, should we have rains we expect floods to hit the same areas again,” he said.

“All that we can say is to appeal for support for food to support what has been done, we have already provided relief food to over 38,000 households, we have provided cash support which is unconditional to over 18,000 households,” he said.

According to the Metrological Department weather outlook, the situation became dire last year due to below-normal short rains.

During the National Development Implementation Coordination and Communication Committee (NDICC) meeting Monday with Development Partners on the Government’s priority programs and other matters of mutual interest Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr. fred Matiang’i said that the government has already several interventions to mitigate the effects of the drought.

“A hybrid program of cash transfer and food distribution involving Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and the National Government Administration Officers (NGAOs) has been adopted to expedite access to relief for targeted recipients,” said Matiang’i.

So far, the government has listed 23 counties as those affected by the drought within the Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASAL).

14 have so far been designated as being in the ‘red counties’ meaning that he drought situation is critical while 9 have been listed in the ‘Amber counties’ category where the siltation is moderate.

Due to minor challenges experienced with emergency cash transfer affecting a few individual in the targeted group, the government re-introduced physical food distribution to all the counties as an emergency intervention to help the affected communities.

63,100 ( 50kg) bags of rice, 62,000  (50kg) bags of beans and 800 cartons of corned beef have been distributed.

Each beneficiary receives Sh3,000 as emergency relief.The total amounted disbursed is Sh677,115,000 in the month of December 2021 and another similar mount for January and February 2022 period.

Another short term intervention the the government continues to implement is the water trucking services as well as the livestock off take program which aims to off load weak cattle.

Sh450 million ahas been set aside for this exercise which is in its first phase.

Government however says that it will roll out long term interventions including infrastructure development that will entail rehabilitation of weather proof infrastructure, sustainable livelihoods that will entail provision of vaccine for cattle and an environment for economic activities.

Also the establishment for early warning systems in drought risk management that will aid response interventions, the improvement of health and education facilities and enhancement of peace and security in some parts of the country that suffer tremendously during drought period.