Kajiado Drought Assessment
"People could be dying in the coming few months!" This alarming statement was made by a villager to Mercy-USA's assessment team during their February 2006 visit to Kenya's drought-affected Kajiado District. This area has not received sufficient rainfall* in the last three years and the current drought has drastically increased the number of vulnerable children and adults in the district.
M-USA's team drove from the town of Kajiado (the district capital which bears the same name as the district itself) to a town called Bisil that is about 20 miles away from the border with Tanzania. "In Bisil, we saw many villagers who had come there to find food," said Fathi Mohamed, M-USA's East Africa Deputy Program Director and the assessment team leader.
The team then proceeded into smaller villages such as the village of Il-Marba, which is the location of the local trading market, where inhabitants from this village and the even smaller ones surrounding it, come together to trade with each other. About 6000 people live in Il-Marba and the surrounding villages.
Fathi Mohamed further observed that "these communities are losing their livestock (mainly cows) and all of the families that we have spoken with told us that they either lost all of their cows or have only one or two left; some of the families had lost fifty or more cows."
Livestock provides the major source of income and food. The residents sell milk and/or livestock and buy other food items (maize, beans, oil, etc.) with the sales' proceeds. Due to the prevailing drought and the resulting weakness of the livestock, the prices of animals have dropped by about 80%, thereby undermining the purchasing power of the people. Children are frequently the most vulnerable in the affected communities, and the losses of livestock threaten the ability of families to survive.
* In April, Kajiado District did receive rain, but it is not clear if the drought has ended; additionally, recovery from successive drought periods will take time as many livestock have died or have been seriously weakened. Since many of the district's residents are pastoralists, their primary source of income and sustenance is livestock.
Click here to return to the special Horn of Africa drought response page.
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