The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently reported that life-threatening hunger has left nearly 130,000 people ‘looking death in the eyes’ in the Horn of Africa.
Development Diaries reports that nearly 50 million people, according to WHO, are facing crisis levels of food insecurity in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.
In an appeal for $178 million to support humanitarian assistance across the seven affected countries, veteran WHO worker Liesbeth Aelbrecht warned that the situation was worse than anything she had seen in more than two decades in the region.
The UN health agency said it intends to use the $178 million to scale up treatment of people suffering from medical complications linked to severe malnutrition.
‘These 48 million people do include as many as 129,000 who are facing catastrophe; and catastrophe, that means they are facing starvation and literally looking death in the eyes’, Aelbrecht said in a statement.
In addition to the dramatic hunger crisis, the region has never seen such a high number of reported disease outbreaks this century.
‘All seven countries are battling measles, a deadly disease’, Aelbrecht added, highlighting how people suffering from malnutrition are much more vulnerable to sickness than those who have enough to eat.
‘Four of the countries are fighting cholera, South Sudan being one of them; they just declared an outbreak. Malaria, which we know is endemic in this region and remains the biggest cause reason for (medical) consultation, is really on the rise’.
WHO also plans to provide mobile health clinics, as increasingly desperate pastoral communities leave their homes and arrive in towns.
After five straight below-average rains, the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa is expanding and deepening.
According to World Food Programme (WFP), regardless of how the 2023 rains perform, extremely high humanitarian needs will persist through 2023 while a full recovery from a drought of this magnitude will take years.
Also, forecast from the Climate Hazard Centre warned that the region is likely headed for a sixth poor rainy season this spring, from March to May 2023.
As of the end of December 2022, the drought had left around 23 million people severely food insecure across the region.
The Horn of Africa, indeed, needs an urgent humanitarian intervention and Development Diaries appeals to both local and international donors and development partners to scale up their support for the region.
Photo source: United Nations
