Over 10 million people in Ethiopia are in need of emergency food aid as the drought caused by El Niño grows worse – 60% of the population affected are children and women.
Plan International has programme offices in Ethiopia. We are currently supporting children as well as women with food distribution, healthcare and health education. We are also working closely with the government and other agencies, to monitor the status of children, families and vulnerable communities in the affected areas.
Living on rations
Kassawa and her 2-year-old girl, Tadila, gather with 300 other community members near Plan International Ethiopia’s store house in a village in Shala district. They are there to pick up food supplements – rations of fortified corn, soya beans and vegetable oil – being distributed to combat moderate acute malnutrition.
Kassawa is bringing up her daughter by herself. Like several woman in her village, her husband deserted her as the effects of the El Niño weather phenomenon began to worsen, with food shortages and water scarcity becoming the norm.
Lack of water spreads disease
As well as being malnourished, Workitu has been suffering from eye infections and skin diseases.
Droughts exacerbated by El Niño have made it even more difficult for people to access clean water. Dry and dusty surfaces and lack of sanitation and poor personal hygiene have only compounded the problems and exposed many children to water-borne diseases like diarrhoea and water-washed ones such as trachoma and scabies.
Working with the local government and health workers, Plan International has been carrying out campaigns, house-to-house visits and patient screening, which has so far identified more than 700 cases of scabies or trachoma (an average of one case for every household) among children under 10 years old. Thanks to a coordinated intervention, children like Workitu are able to get the treatments they need.
Farmers struggle after long drought
Delayed and sporadic rainfall exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon have caused severe drought and widespread food insecurity for the once prosperous farmers of Dahina district in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. All of this is contributing to malnutrition, which is particularly affecting vulnerable communities.
The drought has been hard on 36-year-old father-of-5 Emagnu Berihun. “I used to be able to cope with a single poor rainy season, but… consecutive failed seasons left me with nothing,” he says.
“My 19-month-old son, Birhan, started suffering from awful stomach cramps which led to prolonged days of diarrhoea, vomiting and coughing that shook the whole family.” Birhan was diagnosed with moderate acute malnutrition at a local health facility. Emagnu and his family were brought into a feeding programme run by Plan International and is now receiving corn, soya beans and vegetable oil every month.
Yewagitu, 2, was admitted to a Plan International-constructed health post in the Dahna district, suffering from malnutrition. He spent 15 days at the stabilisation centre, where he received medicine and a special kind of nutrient-rich milk.
With support from Plan International Ethiopia, the district health post has been giving emergency treatment to malnourished children like Yewagitu.
As of March 2016, Plan International Ethiopia has supported over 27,000 children and almost 25,000 pregnant women to ensure they have access to food in Amhara Region, Oromia Region and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia.