The East African region faces “the very real prospect” of insufficient rains for the fourth consecutive season, according to the World Meteorological Organization, a UN agency. This historic drought would place Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia in a situation of extreme difficulty, unprecedented for 40 years.
The start of the rainy season, which started in March, was particularly dry “. The Horn of Africa recorded “ higher temperatures and lower than normal rainfall “. This time of year, from March to May, is however known as the “ long rains “. Usually it provides 70% of the total annual precipitation.
This is the assessment of the Center for Forecasting and Climate Applications of Igad, the East African regional organization in conjunction with the UN World Meteorological Organization. Humanitarian agencies have already issued urgent appeals to prevent ” widespread starvation “.
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According to the executive secretary of Igad, Workneh Gebeyehu, 19 million people are affected in the region, including 15.5 to 16 million who need “ immediate food aid ”: 6 to 6.5 million in Ethiopia, 3.5 million in Kenya and 6 million in Somalia. In some parts of Somalia, he adds, ” the situation is catastrophic “.
Dr Guleid Artan, Director of the Forecasting Centre, added that “ severe water and pasture shortages lead to reduced food production, significant livestock and wildlife losses, and increased resource conflicts in the region “. And everything indicates, he concludes, that the situation is likely to get worse.
What is dramatic in the region is that there will be four years in a row that there has been a drought. So it’s not so much this year’s drought that’s the problem, but it’s happening in a context of drought. (…) To say that it’s going to be dry against a backdrop of drought is dramatic.
Wilfran Moufouma Okia, forecaster at the World Climate Organization