Drought Ravages Parts of East Africa

By ⋅ July 14, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
Play
Download
(Photo courtesy: CDC)

(Photo courtesy: CDC)

Millions of people in East Africa may be facing starvation. Seasons of failed rains in southern Ehiopia, northern Kenya, Somalia and parts of Djibouti have struck the region with its worst drought in decades. Around 10 million people are said to be in dire need of food and many of them are showing up in refugee camps. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with BBC’s Kevin Mwachiro who is in one of such camps in eastern Kenya.

Discussion

7 comments for “Drought Ravages Parts of East Africa”

  • Anonymous

    Just heard a portion of Kevin’s interview and was touched.  How can we help?  

  • Anonymous

    Just heard a portion of Kevin’s interview and was touched.  How can we help?  

  • Anonymous

    I looked it up and the International Committee of the Red Cross has a mission in Somalia specifically related to the drought that you can donate to here:
    http://www.icrc.org/eng/donations/index.jsp

  • Anonymous
  • http://www.facebook.com/Sarah.Cluster Sarah Briane Cluster

    Me too .. I thought I had just posted but I guess not. I can not help but also ask Rupert Murdoch to channel some of that bushel of money obtained thru exploiting the lowest in our appetites for rubbish – towards the very sex that is suffering the most right now, whom he has made millions off of. Even if it is to just relieve them for some days of suffering, it would be the only PR right now that would make me be able to stomach another picture of his ugly face and his young Asian wife. (Sorry but it is true .. the guy is ugly ugly ugly.) Plus he could set up some clinics all over Africa that give out RU 486 pills that are safe and easy and would improve immensely the ability for those females constantly raped and badgered into having children that can not survive – TO CONTROL THEIR OWN BODIES. I know it is too late for these millions (?) suffering but I am not using this as an opportunity to farther my agenda of birth control. It is not working all of the Live Aids and aid that has been poured into Africa in terms of food for the last 60 years. Well it is BUT without giving those females control over their bodies the devastation hits numbers higher every time. That pill has been deemed safe for over 20 years. I was one of the first guinae pigs who was the only volunteer I saw in that office long ago OVER 20 years ago. It is safe and it is cheap and in the first 6 weeks it works like a dream to emit nothing NOT even as much as one day of menstruation. No one is going to challenge that truth with their hypocrisy about LIFE. In a nation where the rights of life of their magnificent animal species has been flagrantly violated and stomped almost into extinction, the female human- being species there needs the ability to control their own bodies and to immediately prevent more suffering in even as soon as the next 6 weeks. Because somehow someway the males of that continent still victimize the most depleted and frail of females so yes I believe in 6 weeks time there would be benefit and less suffering if someone would fund that pill to be offered there. To overcome the religious sexism I realize is another matter but offer the pill to females without males around, and I will bet they would choose it.

    • Anonymous

      I think an immediate relief effort has to take priority before long term solutions can be considered.  Plus, any debate about sexuality, consensual or not, or the notion of women having more children than they can support will only distract from what is a looming humanitarian crisis.  What matters is that human beings are suffering and dying.  Yes, the issues you raise need addressing.  But not at the cost of wringing our hands while people starve to death.

  • http://crabcakesblog.disqus.com crabcakesbuddha

    Yes you are right .. and I realize I was exploiting the crisis in order to bring it up …. AND I did go to the Oxfam site and donate after trying the 2nd one and it not working (which was interesting because they have a link at top citing the proliferation of bogus sites) BUT I am telling you unfortunately …. so often myself as well as others I know so often think that aid in this crisis is so so so so short term that it is not worth it. I know … I know … that sounds ruthless … and I am not that. All I had to hear was a story on NPR about a Somalia woman putting down her two babies and walking on because she did not want to see them die and she could not carry them any longer. BUT that goes to the very heart of the fact that exploiting the immediacy of this subject matter can possibly take up something that can be handed over just as immediate as food. And you say that taking that pill does not nourish IMMEDIATELY some female over there and that the only way that subject matter can be addressed is thru looking at it as the subject matter that LOOMS and encompasses so much. And I say it is too long now that avenue of not allowing any change. Give it out as easily as rice and slip it in under the radar and finally like so many things of human rights that come in ONLY under the radar – and let it be its own messenger. Because I know for a fact it would immediately nourish a female TODAY. But yes I understand your reasoning. And it works. But I venture new, bold, even perhaps obnoxious mentions are going to be some of the ways that finally change is allowed. The AIDS cocktail being handed out in Africa is a phenomenon that came in without a lot of fan fair. One day all I read of was the scourge of rape victims and torn bodies and operations done to try and repair those women and the outcome of AIDS babies and the next day I see President Clinton possibly yanking a door open and WORKING AIDS medication being handed out as opposed to the partial and long drawn out regimens that had only been in effect previously. Pills Often help as much as food.