Food shortage crisis worsens

An estimated 200,000 residents of Wajir are faced with starvation.

Wajir acting District Commissioner Abednego Etyang said mass starvation of women and children could not be ruled out unless food is made available within the next one month.

He lamented that the Government had so far began distributing its last 5,800 bags of maize against the large population threatened with hunger.

Etyang appealed for 30,000 bags of maize, 3,667 of beans and 33,333 cartons of cooking oil per month to curb imminent starvation.

He called for another 4.5 tonnes of Unimix to feed about 40,000 malnourished children admitted at Wajir District Hospital and various health centres.

He noted that due to ravaging drought, pastoralists have moved their livestock to Somalia, Ethiopia and parts of Eastern Province in search of water and pasture.

The administrator also expressed concern over the pastoralists’ ability to maintain peace with their hosts.

He said the hardest hit areas include Sabule, Meri, Dadajabula, Dimanyale, Turatura Orgonji, Ingirir, Dambas, Danaba, Elben, Conton, Hadado and Abakore.

Elsewhere, an acute shortage of beans has hit Kangundo market following rain failure this season.

Traders at major markets said they now have to buy their stocks from farmers in Central Province.

Yesterday, a survey established that the prices of beans and maize had also shot up in major markets.

A kilo of beans is going for Sh40 up from Sh35 a week ago while that of maize is being sold at Sh20 up from Sh16.

Telkom Kenya has pledged a portion of its monthly payphone earnings towards famine relief.

Telkom Kenya Limited Chief Marketing Officer Bernard Rubia said a percentage of the money to be generated in the next three months through the firm’s 10,000 pay phone booths, will go to assisting the hungry.

And the American Embassy in Nairobi yesterday made a Sh4 million token donation—the first of such a response since President Kibaki declared famine a national disaster last week.

The money, said to come from the special emergency fund, is nonetheless only an initial response, according to a statement from the embassy, which adds that further plans were underway to donate food aid and related relief supplies.

It was also revealed that of the Sh1.2 billion the Government has spent to buy relief food supplies, more than Sh45 million was gobbled up by transport and other logistical costs.

Source: Daily Nation
Publication Date: 08/10/2004
Story by ZEDDY SAMBU