Millions of African Climate Refugees Desperate for Food, Water

http://www.alternet.org/food/151578/millions_of_african_climate_refugees_desperate_for_food,_water?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet

The worst drought in 60 years is causing a severe food crisis in East Africa. In Kenya, the world's largest refugee camp is overwhelmed as 10,000 climate refugees from across the drought-stricken region arrive each week seeking water, food and shelter.

"The overcrowded Dadaab refugee camp in Garissa continues to receive new arrivals at alarming rates. The current number of registered refugees, 353,921, is four times its capacity," the UN's humanitarian affairs agency said Thursday. "Twenty thousand people have arrived in the last two weeks alone."

The influx of Somalis into refugee camps in the Dadaab area of Kenya's North-Eastern province has led to worsening overcrowding amid limited resources.

The epicenter of the drought has hit the poorest people in the region in an area straddling the borders of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, estimates that 10 million people across the Horn of Africa are caught in a deadly combination of failed rains and soaring global food prices.

More than half of the refugees are children. Child malnutrition rates in some areas have climbed to twice the emergency threshold amid high food prices that have left families desperate, the agency says. Supplementary and therapeutic feeding programs are struggling to keep pace with the rising needs.

The drought has forced children out of school as both human and livestock diseases spread. Competition for the meagre resources is causing tensions among communities.

The Kenyan government has declared the drought situation a national disaster, with malnutrition mortality rates in northern Kenya exceeding emergency thresholds.

Drought-related displacement and refugee flows are on the rise, with an average of 15,000 Somalis arriving in Kenya and Ethiopia every month this year seeking help.

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In Ethiopia, the consumer price index for food increased by almost 41 percent last month.

The price of grain in drought-affected areas of Kenya is 30 to 80 percent more than the five-year average.

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