The background is the weak rainy seasons in East Africa.
Alarm meters have been in the red for a long time.
The drought began in East Africa as early as a year ago. Usually during the shorter rainy season coming from the end of the year, the rains were scarce.
The same expenditure continued in the spring during the longer rainy season. No rain was seen.
This autumn, too, has been record dry, especially in the Horn of Africa. The coming spring is forecast to be light rain with 90 percent certainty. That would mean the fourth consecutive dry rainy season.
In November, the World Food Program WFP warnedthat nearly 60 million people in East Africa are at risk of famine.
From drought alarming news has spread throughout the year.
More than a million people in southern Madagascar are suffering from famine at the end of a long period of drought. Food security in southern and eastern Ethiopia and Kenya and Somalia has deteriorated dramatically this year, aid organizations warn.
The UN said on Thursday it would have to suspend the distribution of vital food aid in northern Ethiopia. Cause: Tigray rebels have looted food supplies from aid organizations in an area where more than nine million people are at risk of starvation.
Save me children on Thursday estimate that as many as 260,000 children under the age of five have starved to death in East Africa this year.
The figure is startling when compared to, for example, the deaths caused by the coronavirus. The pandemic has disrupted the world, but there are some 224,000 coronary deaths in Africa to date, according to Johns Hopkins University.
That is, less than infant starvation in 2021.
Where from creeping malnutrition in the shadow of the corona then due to?
Many experts estimate that East Africa is beginning to suffer from the devastating effects of climate change.
An exceptional drought lasting three consecutive seasons has brought East African farmers to their knees.
At the same time, opposite extremes have been experienced. South Sudan, for example, has seen heavy rains for three years that have flooded the Nile. Nearly a million people have been forced to flee their homes due to the floods.
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According to eyewitness accounts, Tigray residents eat the leaves and roots of the trees.
At the same time food aid is not properly delivered to where it is most needed. The saddest example is the Ethiopian Tigray, where the war between the rebels and the central government has been raging since November 2020.
Due to a complete media outage, little information has been received from the area. According to eyewitness accounts, residents eat the leaves and roots of the trees because the crops have failed due to drought and conflict.
No famine has been officially declared in northern Ethiopia. Still, it is no exaggeration to claim that hunger is deliberately used as a weapon in civil war.
Extreme weather and in addition to conflict, food security is undermined by a global pandemic. It has messed up logistics chains, and the waves of infection that have hit us over and over again have pushed people into poverty.
Rich western countries are suffering from a lack of components and chips due to the pandemic. In poorer countries, the shortage is more acute. The plates are empty. Food prices are forecast to continue rising.
If the drought and pandemic continue next year, as might be expected, famine could become an even more pressing news topic in 2022.
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