Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) - Caritas Internationalis has called for international solidarity and appealed for 1.2 million dollars to feed women, children and old people in areas of Kenya where it is difficult to get aid to where it is most needed.
In a report on the food emergency Caritas Kenya says there have already been some lives lost and up to 3.5 million people are in need of emergency food aid. “The main priority is obviously to avoid further loss of life” said Bishop Martin Kivuva, chairman of Caritas/Development and Social Services Commission Kenya.
The project will benefit nearly 45,000 people with about 30,000 receiving direct food distributions and over 14,000 receiving additional, high nutrition food as part of a supplement feeding programme which targets severely malnourished children and women, including nursing and pregnant women, who need added energy and nutrients .
The programme aims to reach people who have not been receiving food aid through the government distributions or from international NGOs. According to surveys in different dioceses in Kenya food aid has not been reaching many people. For example in Isiolo, one of the hardest-hit areas, government rations are reaching only 10% of the people in need. In some areas the malnourished are too weak to ever reach food distribution centres. The programme also targets hungry people who are also suffering from illness, such as HIV/AIDS, and are likewise to incapacitated or isolated to reach food aid.
Caritas Kenya will oversee the entire project working in close collaboration with other Caritas members organisations such as CAFOD (Caritas GB) and Catholic Relief Services (Caritas USA) to ensure transparency in the food distributions. There have been reports of food aid sold on the market as well as duplicate distributions in some locations.
In addition more than 18,000 farmers will receive drought-resistant seed to plant for when the next rains come.
Another $45,000 US dollars are need to bring food aid to the people of Djibouti where consecutive seasons of failed rain and crops have left 150,000 people in need of food aid. The situation is critical since long-waited rains that normally fall between October and February have yet to appear.
The lack of rain has hit the pastoral herders particularly since they depend on watering holes and prairie grasses to heel their livestock healthy. They sell their milk and meat and in turn would normally be able to buy food. The skinny animals can not longer provide any such income and people have begun moving towards town centres in search of food.
Caritas Djibouti plans to bring food aid to some 200 families in the interior of the country using to its best advantage the network that Catholic Church has established through its missions.
At least 8 million people are at risk of starvation in the famine which is affecting Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 16/272006 righe 43 parole 509)
