UNICEF seeks $250 mln to help children facing drought in Horn of Africa. The UN agency says the number of children facing severe drought conditions across the Horn of Africa has increased by more than 40 percent in the space of two months
The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, said it has revised its emergency appeal from 119 million U.S. dollars to nearly 250 million dollars to help millions of children facing severe drought in the Horn of Africa.
UNICEF warned that the number of children facing severe drought conditions across the Horn of Africa has increased by more than 40 percent in the space of two months.
“If we don’t act now we will see an avalanche of child deaths in a matter of weeks. Famine is just around the corner,” Mohamed M. Fall, the UNICEF regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa, said in a statement issued in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The UN children’s fund said between February and April, the number of children facing the impact of drought including acute hunger, malnutrition and thirst increased from 7.25 million to at least 10 million.
According to the UNICEF, within the past two months across the Horn of Africa, the number of households without reliable access to clean and safe water has almost doubled — from 5.6 million to 10.5 million while the number of people classified as food insecure has risen from 9 million to 16 million.
It said the number of children out of school has remained disturbingly high at 15 million with an additional 1.1 million children being at risk of dropping out and thousands of schools already lacking access to water.
UNICEF said the climate-induced emergency across the Horn of Africa is the worst drought the region has seen in 40 years.
“Three consecutive dry seasons have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, killed vast swathes of livestock and crops, fuelled malnutrition and increased the risk of disease,” it said.
UNICEF said more than 81,000 children in Somalia are at risk of famine by the end of June if the fourth consecutive rainy season fails, food prices continue to rise sharply, and humanitarian assistance is not stepped up.
It said more than 1.7 million children across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia require urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition and warned that if rains fail in the coming weeks, this figure will rise to 2 million.
“We need to act now to save children’s lives — but also to protect childhoods. Children are losing their homes, their education and their right to grow up safe from harm. They deserve the world’s attention now,” Fall said
Drought in S. Africa
The business chamber of South Africa’s southern coastal Nelson Mandela Bay on Thursday “strongly” appealed to all businesses and residents in the city to immediately and drastically reduce water consumption, as the city’s water taps face a risk of running dry.
The city, Africa’s automotive industry hub, which has a population of over 1.2 million and is one of eight metropolitan municipalities in South Africa, has over the past year released multiple notices that the local dam levels are “critically low” and that it has to adhere to restrictions imposed by the national Department of Water and Sanitation.
The business chamber, in an article published on its website, worried that the fast running out of water, with no significant rains currently projected for the area, leads to a high risk that 40 percent of Nelson Mandela Bay will have no water by the end of May.
“When the dams run dry, many reservoirs will naturally be starved of water due to the high demand and will need to be shut down. With demand remaining around 280 mega liters per day, dry taps are inevitable as both the Kouga and Kromme systems serving the Metro will run dry,” the chamber’s CEO Denise Van Huyssteen said in the article.
The chamber said frequent pump station failures and high Water consumption over the past few months also contributed to the situation.
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Despite the water crisis, there is little visible awareness around the Metro, which incorporates Gqeberha, formerly Port Elizabeth, and shopping centers, restaurants and other public amenities do not appear to be actively driving water-saving messages and measures.
It recommended all businesses and residents adopt measures like rainwater harvesting, recycling initiatives, and water restrictors wherever possible.
The municipality in March warned that if demand is not reduced, large parts of the city may have to collect water from water tankers for weeks or even months.
To sustain water resources, the municipality has divided into three zones, with zone one being asked to reduce consumption by 20 percent and the two others by 40 percent.