wfn.org | CWS News: Kenya Famine: NGO Survey Warns of 'Starvation'

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Kenya Famine: NGO Survey Warns 'Starvation Will Become Deadly 
Reality' Without Immediate Intervention

Church World Service Responding, Delivering Food Aid, Planning New 
Water Resources

NAIROBI, KENYA- Fri. Jan. 30, 2008 - Without immediate, massive 
intervention and assistance, starvation in Kenya will become a deadly 
reality, according to a new assessment report from global 
humanitarian agency Church World Service. The country's leaders 
proclaimed a national crisis on January 16, with some ten million 
Kenyans-- nearly a third of the country's population-- now being 
affected by food insecurity.

CWS has launched a U.S. fundraising campaign and its Nairobi-based 
East Africa office is responding to the growing crisis with immediate 
food and nutritional aid in the agricultural districts of Makueni and 
Mwingi in Kenya's drought-plagued Eastern Province. The effort is 
targeted to benefit 20,237 people.

An assessment team from CWS's East Africa office in Nairobi reports 
desperation after visiting the Eastern districts of Mwingi, Kitui, 
Mackakos and Makueni to determine the effects of massive food 
shortages and the ongoing drought.

Church World Service says there is a serious need for emergency food 
relief and supplementary feeding for those five and under and for the 
aged, as well as rehabilitation of dry water basins and construction 
of water-retaining sand dam structures.

The agency is working with four local grassroots and church partners, 
providing assistance to affected families in the agricultural 
districts of Makueni and Mwingi in Kenya's Eastern Province-where 
2008's massive drought struck large sections of the province, leaving 
farmers with failing crops.

The CWS response will include: immediate food aid; enhancing 
selective feeding programs among children and people living with HIV 
and AIDS, and where nutrition is already poor or deteriorating, 
particularly among pastoral households; providing additional food 
allocations to assist school feeding programs in schools where 
enrollment has decreased due to drought; and seed distribution.

In Kaikungu community, 'eighty-five percent facing starvation'
Visiting the community of Kaikungu, the CWS assessment team saw field 
after field of ploughed land laying desolate with occasional spurts 
of struggling maize plants protruding from the cracked earth.
Area Councillor Cosmas Kitumbi told Church World Service that in his 
ward of some 5,600 people, eighty-five percent are facing starvation. 
The village elders said the region's historically depended-on 
November "long rains" were infrequent and erratic last year, and no 
rain fell at all in December. The short rain season of March through 
May could bring some relief, but expectations aren't high.
"I have never seen a situation like this before in all of my seventy 
years," Kaikungu elder Jones M.A. Ndumu said, slowly shaking his head.
The CWS team found the situation in all districts surveyed "a world 
of desperation" and reports that the areas around Mwingi, Makueni and 
parts of Machakos are in critical danger.

In Kitui, a small town in Eastern Province, the team saw scant dozens 
of cattle and goats being brought to market, all appearing sick and 
emaciated, ribs protruding under dust-caked skin.

Prolonged droughts and unpredictable rainy seasons exaggerated by 
climate change, the effects of the world food crisis, trade and 
spiraling prices, as well as increased fertilizer prices, have 
combined to create an environment for hunger, starvation and 
continuing agricultural failure, without immediate, comprehensive and 
continued intervention. As well, last year's election violence in 
Kenya resulted in burned farmlands and farmers too afraid of further 
violence to go out and plant.

Statistics from the Uasin Gishu agricultural district office show 
that the area there under maize cultivation fell by about 20,000 
acres from last year as a result of displacement following the 
post-election attacks.

In addition to the famine prone regions of North Eastern, Turkana, 
upper and lower Eastern and Coastal regions, many families in the 
areas of Laikipia, Nandi, Uasin Gishu and Trans Nzoia and parts of 
Central Province are in urgent need of food, reports CWS Emergency 
Response Program Officer Sammy Matua.

Village sand dam water catchments 'still holding water' despite droughts
Church World Service's "Water for All" projects in Kenya have been 
providing communities with drought mitigation and sustainable, local 
clean water resources for several years. While assessing Eastern 
Province's food crisis, the CWS team encountered a sand dam it helped 
construct in 2006. The only remaining water source for the Ing'oini 
village of about 500 households, the sand dam is still holding water 
today despite the current drought.

CWS anticipates a later, longer-term appeal for funds to support 
construction of more sand dams in affected communities.

Local partners assisting the CWS Kenya team's response include the 
National Council of Churches of Kenya, the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran 
Church, the Community Rural Initiative and the Anglican Church of Kenya.

HOW TO HELP: Contributions to support this emergency appeal may be 
made online at: www.churchworldservice.org/donate ; by check to 
Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515; or call toll 
free (800) 297-1516.

LINK TO CHURCH WORLD SERVICE KENYA FAMINE ASSESSMENT REPORT: 
http://www.churchworldservice.org/KenyaAssessment

Media Contacts:

Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, +212-870-2676, media@churchworldservice
Jan Dragin (24/7), +781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net