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STORY: ETHIOPIA/ DROUGHT IMPACT ON CHILDREN
TRT: 03:47
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT UNICEF ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / SOMALI/ NATS
DATELINE: 11- 12 APRIL 2022, SHABELLE ZONE, SOMALI REGION, ETHIOPIA
11 APRIL 2022, SHABELLE ZONE, SOMALI REGION, ETHIOPIA
1. Wide shot, Higlo IDP Camp
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Mohamed M. Fall, Regional Director for Eastern & Southern Africa, UNICEF:
“I have visited two IDP sites, and what I have seen is heartbreaking. I have seen communities walking two, three days before reaching this site, lacking everything.”
3. Wide shot, woman with child, tents, Higlo IDP Camp
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Mohamed M. Fall, Regional Director for Eastern & Southern Africa, UNICEF:
“Unfortunately, we are facing the same situation in the entire horn of Africa. I think for the moment in the region and following, you have Ethiopia, Somalia, you have northern part of Kenya, and we are talking about 20 million people whose lives are now threatened by food insecurity, probably high levels of malnutrition, severe lack of water, loss of all the livelihoods, loss of livestock, population movement across the border. It became one of the most important humanitarian crises. And on top of it, we are also living through the far-reaching repercussion of the Ukraine conflict, which we know is already impacting wheat prices, and we know that the countries that I have mentioned, Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia depend on over 70 percent, of their wheat import from those two countries. You have also the issue of the price of oil which have skyrocketing, and which is impacting across all aspects of life and all aspect of commodities that these people need and for their daily life.”
5. Wide shot, child walking into hut, Higlo IDP Camp
12 APRIL 2022, SHABELLE ZONE, SOMALI REGION, ETHIOPIA
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Mahamed Shafi, Director, Gode Hospital:
“This drought is the worst drought that I have seen for the last 20 years. It has affected the whole community, especially the children, especially the under-five children. So, we are getting here a lot of malnourished children. More than the children we have seen six months ago. You know, the number of admissions has increased from five patients per day to 15 patients per day.”
7. Med shot, malnourished children and mothers, Gode Hospital
8. SOUNDBITE (Somali), Ayan Muhammed, mother of a severely malnourished child:
“My child became sick. He was vomiting and having diarrhea. We brought him here. Thanks to Allah, he is doing well now. He is being fed through the nose; he has a problem in his mouth. He doesn’t have any other problem. Thanks to Allah, he is doing very well now. Though the drought has affected everyone, the degree of effect varies. We fled from a place called Gabbi. We lost our livestock. Thanks to Allah, we moved to this town, and we are now living at the 4th Qabale (section). Thanks to Allah, my children are now doing well. We used a donkey cart as a transport means; it took us five nights to come here. We trekked for five days to come here. When I came here, my child fell sick. That is why I came to the health center. Thanks to Allah, he is now doing well.”
9. Med shot, Mahamed Shafir, Ayan Muhammed, malnourished child, Gode Hospital
According to UNICEF, three consecutive failed rainy seasons have brought on a severe drought in Ethiopia’s lowland regions of Afar, Oromia, The Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ (SNNP) and Somali regions, drying up water wells, killing livestock and crops, and pushing hundreds of thousands of children and their families to the brink.
Overall, nearly 9 million people are estimated to be affected by the drought across the region – this includes over 3.5 million children.
An estimated 1.6 million people have been displaced in all four drought-impacted regions, and in the Shebelle zone, Somali region, around 72,000 children and their families have been displaced.
It is anticipated that the upcoming rainy season will be 20-45% less than the average, meaning for the first time, Ethiopia would have four consecutive failed rainy seasons in a row.
In all drought-impacted areas, malnutrition rates are increasing at an alarming rate.
In the worst-hit regions of Somali and Oromia, around 225,000 malnourished children and over 100,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women need urgent nutritional support.
Admission for treatment of Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in the Somali region was 15-27% higher in January 2022 than in January 2021, with similar patterns observed in drought-impacted areas in Oromia and SNNP regions.
Mahamed Shafi, Director of Gode Hospital, said, “This drought is the worst drought that I have seen for the last 20 years. It has affected the whole community, especially the children, especially the under-five children. So, we are getting here a lot of malnourished children. More than the children we have seen six months ago. You know, the number of admissions has increased from five patients per day to 15 patients per day.”
UNICEF, in close coordination with the local authorities, is working tirelessly to provide life-saving assistance to those desperately in need. This includes the rehabilitation of boreholes and water schemes, emergency water trucking, treatment of severely malnourished children, and providing emergency education and child protection support.
