Africa Food Crisis - Updates from the field
A humanitarian crisis looms in the Horn of Africa, with more than 14 million people across Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya facing extreme hunger. The region is facing the worst drought in 40 years and food prices are skyrocketing due to the war in Ukraine.
Caritas Australia CEO Kirsty Robertson and Advancement Director Richard Landels travelled to Ethiopia earlier this month and shared updates as they met communities affected by the food crisis and displaced people who had fled conflict zones.
Caritas Australia is supporting our partners in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Eritrea to respond quickly to support vulnerable communities during this humanitarian crisis. Your generous support can help provide emergency food rations, clean water and hygiene supplies to communities in need.
Update - July 10
Update from Kirsty Robertson, Caritas Australia CEO:
Our last day in Ethiopia was a whirlwind of meetings with the staff at Caritas Ethiopia and then we met the Australian Ambassador. At the airport I stopped in a shop to pick up a key ring for my son to add to the collection that hang from his school bag. “Ethiopia” it proudly says – and I can already hear him explaining to his friends that I bought it back from Africa for him.
I return from this trip with a lot more than that key ring – I return carrying the weight of the stories that have been shared with me.
There is human suffering taking place in Ethiopia and across the Horn of Africa, in Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan on a scale not seen in decades. I know this because I have seen it with my own eyes. I have sat in the heat and in the dust and listened while people told me their truth – they are walking all night to get to water, they are killing off their herd one by one, they are feeding their children just one meal day.
Perhaps I am getting closer to understanding the meaning of solidarity. Truly understanding what it means to hold the responsibility of other people’s pain and suffering.
The staff at Caritas Ethiopia process these feelings every day. Their resilience astounds me and compels me forward.
In the midst of the pain and suffering I saw there were tiny little beacons of light – some seeds, water in trucks, toilets, tarps – each one the result of Caritas Australia supporters and staff – a lantern of hope. This problem is not insurmountable – person-by-person, community-by-community, we have the power to make a difference. In fact, we already are.
Caritas Australia is supporting our partners in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Eritrea to respond quickly to support vulnerable communities during this humanitarian crisis. Your generous support can help provide emergency food rations, clean water and hygiene supplies to communities in need.
Update - July 9
Update from Richard Landels, Advancement Director:
Everything in Ethiopia is more difficult than in Australia. Checking in at the airport, driving on the roads, having regular access to fuel, even brushing your teeth, showering and going to the toilet is tough.
In the regions where we stayed during our visit, I experienced a small example of the difficulties. So you can understand how challenging it is for our partners, who are working in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the country. The thing that clearly sets our partners apart from other NGOs is that we are always with these communities because we are part of the fabric of these communities.
I thought I was coming here just as part of Caritas Australia but now I feel I am part of the greater Caritas worldwide family. Our mission unites us and we are much more than the efforts of our individual agencies.
Caritas Australia is supporting our partners in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Eritrea to respond quickly to support vulnerable communities during this humanitarian crisis. Your generous support can help provide emergency food rations, clean water and hygiene supplies to communities in need.
Update - July 8
Update from Kirsty Robertson, Caritas Australia CEO
The heat at times was unbearable today and for a while we found respite under a collection of trees near the Omo river. Crowded around us were about 700 household leaders who were there to pick up their cash payment as part of a Caritas network program for drought assistance.
They were lined up in orderly queues – the police providing protection to the bank workers who hand out the cash. The irony of standing next to a beautiful wide river whilst talking to people about the drought was not lost on me. The problem of course was there is no way to get the water from the river to the settlement communities which are many, many kilometres away.
Globally 49 million people are facing famine – a number so big it is unfathomable and easily overwhelming. Today the sheer scale of the African Food Crisis came into clear view for me.
Community after community of 10,000 or 20,000 or 50,000 people in desperate need of food and water. Some of these communities have experienced a drought, a flood, a locust outbreak and another drought all in the same year. Their resilience is worn down. A tired resignation is etched in these people’s faces. I once again feel my heart breaking for these communities and especially for these children – this is a humanitarian crisis and we must do more. We need to do more for our African sisters and brothers now.
Caritas Australia is supporting our partners in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Eritrea to respond quickly to support vulnerable communities during this humanitarian crisis. Your generous support can help provide emergency food rations, clean water and hygiene supplies to communities in need.
Update - July 7
Update from Kirsty Robertson, Caritas Australia CEO
Today I visited a settlement in desperate need of our help.
They are 18km off the road, the signs for other NGOs have long since disappeared in this part of Ethiopia – it is simply too far and too hard to work here.
And yet out of the trees come nearly 100 people – heads of the households. The men on one side and women on the other, they have been waiting for us to arrive. Waiting to speak their truth to me.
The weight of their truth is evident in their bodies long before they speak. Their crop (provided by a Caritas relief package) has unfortunately mostly failed. The rains have not come for the fifth year in a row, and they are running out of options. They have had to start killing their animals as they have no food to feed them.
We listen to their stories and one woman takes me to her hut. She has just returned from the overnight walk to get water. She doesn’t know how long it took but she left as the sun began to get low (around 6pm) and had just returned (around 4pm the following day). During that time her small children were inside her hut alone, but she has no choice – they need water to survive. She tried to teach me how to grind maize. I was terrible at it – that made her laugh!
It is very hard to think of humans flourishing in a place like this when survival seems difficult enough.
Tonight, I go to sleep bearing the weight of witness.
Communities just like this one exists all over this part of Ethiopia – please give to the Caritas Australia Food Crisis Appeal today.
Update - July 6
Update from Richard Landels, Advancement Director
Today we travelled to the southern part of Ethiopia near the border of Kenya and South Sudan. Here, the people have been enduring a long-term drought which has dramatically contributed to the food crisis which is impacting Ethiopia and other countries that make up the Horn of Africa.
In the past two days we have flown over 700km. Looking out the window at the land for the first three quarters of the flight, we see rich, cultivated land. Farming in Ethiopia is not the same as in Australia where production is done on a large scale with machinery; farming in Ethiopia is a very local or family enterprise, where the family contributes with the oxen and sometimes camels helping with the ploughing.
The harvested produce is mainly for the family and if there is any surplus, it can be sold at the market. The profits can then be used to buy other products needed for the family. Activity and industry are abundant, work starts early and finishes late with the animals being looked after and then walked home. Every effort is made to meet the families’ needs.
As we fly south the landscape has changed dramatically. Gone are streams, rivers and dark fertile soil. This has been replaced with bone-dry stream and riverbeds and chalk-dry soil.
In Australia we are familiar with droughts, and here in southern Ethiopia near the South Sudan and Kenyan borders, there is a serious drought. This is the third year in-a-row that the people here have experienced seriously low rainfall. The soil is so dry there is no reason to even plant a crop.
Tomorrow we are due to visit a settlement in dire need of food and water, for their survival. If not for agencies like our partner, Caritas Ethiopia, more will die. Caritas Ethiopia’s urgent humanitarian programs are providing life-saving water and seed for planting, in the hope that there will be an opportunity to sow the fields.
Caritas Australia is supporting our partners in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Eritrea to respond quickly to support vulnerable communities during this humanitarian crisis. Your generous support can help provide emergency food rations, clean water and hygiene supplies to communities in need.
Update - 5th July
Update from Kirsty Robertson, CEO, Caritas Australia:
Yesterday we went to see the new part of the IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp that is in its final stage of construction. The shelters are built using wood from eucalyptus trees and so there is a familiar smell in the air. Richard and I both bent down to grab some leaves and smell them. I wonder why? Perhaps to seek out something familiar in such an unfamiliar place. The local staff don’t seem to want us to loiter so they whisk us quickly towards the toilets and proudly point out the features. A block of eight, four on one side and four on the other. The structure has been created with the strong straight eucalyptus wood, they have a concrete floor with a pit in the middle and corrugated iron walls and roof. This is the first block of what will become a long line through the middle of the new camp. Two in each block have been created wider to allow for access for those with a disability. Its design is simple yet functional.
My son like, many five-year-olds, is obsessed with poo. He loves talking about poo and reading books about poo – you just have to browse the children’s section of a bookstore or library to see he is not alone. But once we become an adult, toilets are not something we normally talk about. And yet for people in IDP camps, toilets are so much more than just toilets and so we must talk about them.
We must talk about how access to clean toilets and hand-washing facilities prevent the spread of diseases. We must talk about the fact that many women experience violence while they are trying to go to the toilet in the middle of the night or in the nearby bushes and so toilets provide them protection. And we must talk about how a toilet can help those in IDP camps realise their dignity. They have had everything stripped away from them and a toilet is their first step back to normality, to feel whole again.
I’m proud of the work that the Caritas network is doing in these IDP camps by providing people with toilets and I hope we keep taking about the wonderful work Caritas Australia does in partnership to provide toilets here in Ethiopia and across the world.
Caritas Australia is supporting our partners in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Eritrea to respond quickly to support vulnerable communities during this humanitarian crisis. Your generous support can help provide emergency food rations, clean water and hygiene supplies to communities in need.
Update - 4th July
I am in an IDP camp in northern Ethiopia. These people are facing an impending hunger crisis – many are already receiving well less than the required calories per day or surviving purely on wheat alone.
Despite this, many I spoke to offered to share what little they had with me. In the Catholic tradition, hospitality is a sacred duty and it was evident at every level of the camp. We experienced a level of extravagant welcome in the camp that will remain in my heart for a long time – from the camp director, an IDP himself who invited us into his “home” within a few minutes of meeting us, to the lovely couple who made me tea, to the mother of three children who wanted to share her injera with me.
On this trip I have once again been reminded that we have a lot to learn from vulnerable people throughout the world about how to build communities of radical grace. Where generosity and constant reciprocity flows.
Update from Richard Landels, Advancement Director:
For my first visit to Africa, my first impressions of Ethiopia are amazing – it’s colourful, chaotic in an organised way, with a fantastically industrious population. There is movement everywhere – kids going to school, people travelling to work and deliveries on their way to different places.
Travelling the 75km yesterday took about two hours. The terrain is mountainous and the roads are challenging with much traffic. Also an unexpected flow on from the Ukraine crisis is the cost of living, with the shortage of fuel in this area the most obvious. Wherever there is a petrol station there is a long queue of cars, vans and trucks. This was particularly noticeable when we arrived at our destination where drivers have been waiting over three days to buy fuel. The flow-on effects of this are significant, making the movement of food and water even more challenging.
We visited a Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in the north, near the border of the Tigray region. This is my first IDP camp visit, and as we approached we saw a cluster of blue tents in the landscape. The area is very dry and very hot, with no rivers or streams or sign of water anywhere.
After entering the camp we met with the camp leaders who explained the difficulties the population are experiencing. They are only receiving half the food required to live; they have no money and no ability to earn or produce even though many come from being successful framers; they cannot leave the camp to trade and there is little prospect of returning to their homes anytime soon.
We were invited to walk through the camp. Those we met were welcoming, friendly and very gracious. A large portion of the population are women and children and they generously shared some of their lives with us – what circumstances brought them to the camp, what their life in the camp is like, the challenges they face and their hopes for the future.
But the reality now is that they need to focus on the survival of their children and themselves, only thinking about how they can provide enough food so they can live, grow and hopefully one day, flourish.
This is just one camp in northern Ethiopia with 21,000 people, but the scarcity of food and water is common across the Horn of Africa. With the staff of our partners, Caritas Ethiopia, we witnessed firsthand the life-giving work that they are doing in these IDP camps.
Caritas Australia is supporting our partners in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Eritrea to respond quickly to support vulnerable communities during this humanitarian crisis. Your generous support can help provide emergency food rations, clean water and hygiene supplies to communities in need.
Update - 2nd July
Update from Kirsty Robertson, Caritas Australia CEO:
It’s been a whirlwind of travel of the past few days that have brought us to Ethiopia – the largest country in the Horn of Africa. It’s been over a decade since I have been here and while change is apparent in the growing number of cars and tall buildings in the capital in many ways things remain the same – the hospitality of the people, the gorgeous Meskel square, the vibrancy of a country that was never colonised.
Earlier today, I had the pleasure of meeting with His Eminence Cardinal Berhaneyesus Demerew Souraphiel to discuss the work of Caritas Ethiopia’s protection programs and the importance and value of vocational programs.
As I type this I am on a plane and once landed we will then drive about 130km to where we will spend the night. Tomorrow we will make our first visit into the IDP camp in the North.
As I begin to think through tomorrow's activities, a level of trepidation enters my mind. For the past few months I have been using every opportunity possible to speak to people about the Food Crisis in Africa. We have 14 million people (over half the population of Australia) in Kenya, Somalia and here in Ethiopia living in extreme hunger. The situation is dire.
But I do wonder what it will be like to meet the people in the camps – mothers who can’t feed their children. I wonder if I will have the right words, the right gestures so that they know that I care. I wonder how I can, how we can, get people, get the Australian government to do more. I wonder what it will take to make people listen.
Whatever tomorrow brings I also just feel incredibly blessed – to be here with the staff of our partners, Caritas Ethiopia. To be able to witness first hand the life-giving work that they are doing in these IDP camps. Blessed to be part of the Caritas Internationalis confederation and all the hope and light that network brings to the world.
Caritas Australia is supporting our partners in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Eritrea to respond quickly to support vulnerable communities during this humanitarian crisis. Your generous support can help provide emergency food rations, clean water and hygiene supplies to communities in need.