17th August, 2011
Drought in the Horn of Africa, August 2011
The drought in the arid North and West regions of Turkana, Kenya, has reached crisis level, leading to malnutrition and loss of life. AMREF has been working in this region for over 50 years. The communities AMREF works with there, mostly pastoralists, are experiencing malnutrition and increasing scarcity of water.
Turkana already has the worst maternal and child mortality rates in Kenya: AMREF has seen the nutritional status of children under 5 years and women of reproductive age worsen, making them acutely vulnerable to malnutrition and death.
AMREF's response is focused on the following:
- Carrying out Community Health Outreach to tackle the recorded increases in diseases like malaria, diarrhoea, trachoma, pneumonia– starting immediately for 12 months.
- Rehabilitating boreholes to provide a clean, safe water supply
- Transporting water to the affected area and support the Ministry of Water to do the same using our unique knowledge and exposure to the neediest communities
- Providing emergency fuel to strategic community boreholes – 90 litres a month for 12 months per borehole to subsidise the community’s contributions
- Supporting supplementary feeding in schools to reach the most vulnerable and also to attempt to keep children in school to mitigate the generational effect of the drought.
- Supporting supplementary feeding in health facilities to target those in need and also to encourage the community to visit the health centre for health interventions at an early stage to save lives
Find out more about AMREF's work providing support:
- AMREF: Launching our support for communities affected by the drought
- Drought: Now affecting Kenya's urban poor
- AMREF supports the vulnerable in drought-stricken areas
- Facing severe drought in Kenyan coastal towns
- Support African communities in crisis
- Invest in long-term solutions to reduce the impact of the drought
- AMREF's response to the drought in the Horn of Africa