THEY ARE praying that the rains will not fail in Kenya this October, as they have failed for five years. “The situation is grim, and is likely to get worse. An estimated ten million people are now living with starvation,” Fiona Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Mothers’ Union, said on Tuesday.
Mothers’ Union Kenya, Ms Thomas said, had started to receive calls for help from Kenya’s 16 dioceses when the rains failed at Easter. The global MU had sent more than £74,000 in response, but more requests had poured in, and at least £190,000 was needed now.
“This is more than the total we usually spend on relief work, which was £124,000 last year,” Ms Thomas said. MU Kenya usually funded many of its own programmes. “For them to request that amount, the situation must be horrific. We want the Churches to pray that the rains due in October will not fail.”
Salome Leipa, the Mothers’ Union provincial co-ordinator for Kenya said: “This is a national disaster. We have never experienced something like this before. Some food was destroyed last year, when violence broke out, but this shortage has been caused by the drought.
“We source what we can from our members who are able to help, but we want more support from our partners in the UK. It makes a big difference, because sometimes people have to go without any meal at all for a day or two. If we can give them a packet of maize meal, it can save a life.”
Last week, the Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, called a meeting to co-ordinate a national distribution of food. In an official statement, his government said that Kenyans who were starving, or in dire need of food, should text the government, which would get food to them immediately.
Last month, he told the Kenyan Parliament: “If the short October-November rains also fail, we will have catastrophe.”
Region after region in the country reported that the rain they had expected so far this year had not fallen: in Marsabit, 35 mm of rain fell instead of 687 mm; in Kericho, 435 mm instead of 681 mm; in Nyeri, 282 mm instead of 433 mm; and in Nairobi, 195 mm instead of 492 mm.
Everywhere temperatures were up and crop yields were down. Grain prices were high; school feeding-programmes were “in distress”; and about ten million people required urgent help with food.
