Residents and wild animals scramble to quench thirst at water points

A woman and her children shelter themselves from the scorching sun at Bofu in Kwale County. Locals travel way far from their home to get water which they get after three to four days. The area, especially Bofu areas in Kwale County have been hit by drought. [Photo/Kelvin Karani/Standard]

Vulnerable communities affected by drought in Northern Kenya will receive relief food and water to help them tide over the trying period, a governor has said.

Ali Roba, the Mandera County Governor said his government is seeking to distribute relief food, through the Department of Special Programmes, to 63,000 households in all the six Sub-counties as his administration strives to provide the residents with water and feed them too.

He said a total of 1,066 metric tonnes of food including 12,540 bags of 50kgs of rice, 6,270 bags of 50kgs of beans and 6,966 containers of 18kgs of vegetable oil will be distributed.

He added that the delay of short rains triggered the famine which the county government has declared a disaster and is coming up with contingency measures to mitigate effects of drought that has ravaged Northern Kenya and areas of the Coast region such as Kwale and Lamu counties.

In Kwale, the most affected areas are Kinango and Samburu, semi-arid areas on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway while in Kilifi, Kaya Fungo and Mwana Mwinga areas in Kaloleni and Bamba ward in Ganze constituency.

In Lamu, Mkunumbi, Hongwe, Pandanguo, Witu, Koreni and Basuba have been affected by the lack of rainfall. “In Kwale we have cases were mothers are discharged after delivery because of lack of water to bath the new born,” said Ester Nyavula, a human rights activist in Kwale.

Kwale Deputy Commissioner Moses Ivuto said most affected areas in the Kinango Sub-county are Samburu, Chengoni, Vigurungani where over 160,000 people face starvation.

In Mandera, the governor said each beneficiary will be entitled to a ration of 10kgs cereals, 5kgs pulses and 2kgs vegetable oil. He added that due to shortage of pasture, sheep and goats have been adversely affected.

“The pasture is poor in terms of quantity and quality and what is available is far from water points and that increases the risk,” he said.

To save livestock, the County Government will purchase 70,000 bales of hay to be distributed to the most-affected pastoral communities. His administration has also embarked on trucking water to livestock to reduce the distance animals have to cover to water points.

Further, the administration has also undertaken massive vaccination and deworming of livestock hrough the Regional Pastoral Livelihoods Resilience Project.

The County Government is currently trucking water to 141 centres, which include 15 strategic water points.

Borehole maintenance

“We are also trucking to schools and dispensaries in the affected areas. There are 10 water bowsers currently delivering 1.2 million litres per day,” the governor said.

He also revealed the County Government has also hired 10 additional water boozers to boost the current fleet.

Roba said officials are also carrying out 24-hour rapid response borehole maintenance.

He explained that there are two groups of rapid response, one based in El Wak covering Mandera West, Banisa and Mandera South while the other group is covering Mandera East, Lafey and Mandera North.

He said so far they have repaired 30 boreholes since July.

“The County Government is also equipping boreholes on emergency basis. These boreholes are situated in high livestock grazing areas. The boreholes are at Elkuro, Makutano, Ogorwein and Kubi,” Roba said.

“The National Government has donated 20 water boozers to Garissa and Wajir and left out Mandera County citing insecurity but Mandera County Government is ready to provide local drivers,” he said.

In Garissa, livestock and wildlife have started dying as the drought bites. A spot check by The Standard on Sunday revealed that most of the pastoralists are on the move in search of water and pasture for livestock.

Wild animals

When we visited Hullugho sub-county in Garissa County, one of the affected areas, we found hundreds of people struggling to get water from a water pan.

Soman Weheliye Dagane, 65, was among tens of hundreds of people struggling to fetch the dirty water. “For the last six months, I have been waking up at 3am to walk for over three hours from Elma village to this dam to get water,” she said, while filling a 20-litre jerrican with muddy and smelly water.

“I have left behind seven children and some goats. I will share this little water with them. I have nobody else to help me as everyone is facing the same predicament,” she said.

Dagane said she has lost 30 goats and 15 cows to the drought.

Few meters away, Huda Mohamed Bosh, 67, struggles to distill the muddy water using his dirty headscarf before drinking it.

He said he stayed at the water pan overnight waiting for his turn to fetch water.

Thirsty wild animals are “fighting” with people over water sources in the area. Last week Muhumed Dirir Yarto, 46, was killed by buffalo at a watering point in Kabasalo village in Hullugho.

Residents said more than 88 buffaloes were killed after getting stuck in the muddy water point. Our team counted about 45 buffalo carcass in five dried dams in Korisa, Saingailu, Hullugho and Warabeysa areas.

Ijara Sub-sub County, one of the areas hardest hit by the drought schools and health facilities are on the verge of closing down.

Garissa County’s National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) reports show, the dry spell is at an alarming stage in the county noting that Ijara and Hullugho sub-counties are the hardest hit as the water points have dried up.

Acting NDMA County Coordinator Abdinoor Dubow said although there are no livestock deaths have been reported so far, this is unavoidable unless an urgent intervention to mitigate the effects of the drought is found.

“Drought in the county is at alarming stage at the moment. It will soon get into emergency level, because water points have dried up, livestock production has gone down both quality and quantity and the distance to pasture have tremendously increased by 40 percent,” he said.

The face of desperation replicated in Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu and Taita Taveta counties at the Coast where humanitarian organisations say thousands of families face starvation.

Five water pans and three rivers that serve Mtaa, Kibanda, Ungo, Dzubwe, Matumbi, Guro, Mabesheni, Chukuyu (A) and Kisiwani villages have all dried up.

Kilifi County National Disaster Management head, Omar Mworowa said the government will buy over 10 per cent of the 5,500 cattle in drought hit areas in destocking programme.

- Additional reports by Benard Sanga