World ignored drought warnings, says CRS Kenya

“Right now there are an estimated 70 thousand people surrounding the Dabaab refugee camp in Kenya, who cannot access the humanitarian aid there because Dabaab is already past maximum capacity”, says Jim Ashman, Catholic Relief Service emergency coordinator in Kenya.

Dadaab refugee camp is in Eastern Kenya on the border with Somalia. It houses 400 thousand men, women and children, the majority of whom have fled violence and hunger in Somalia. “The ones who have come since January, about 100 thousand of them, are in particularly bad shape”, Ashman, who has just returned from the area, reveals. CRS and other Church partners are providing medical and food aid to as many of those still not registered in the camp as possible.

“I went to one of the areas where 12 thousand of these people have settled on a flood plain which will be inundated by rains this September and the doctor who was there has said he was doing triage, because at least 1 in 4 of the children arriving were severely malnourished”. “I have been working in emergency relief operations for over 20 years”, the CRS director adds, “and personally speaking, this is one of the worst situations I have ever seen”.

Ashman underscores that the real tragedy is the fact people on the ground, like CRS and other relief organisations had been warning of the drought. “Approximately a year ago they raised the alert that the el Nina drought was coming to the region”. Listen to Jim Ashman’s full interview with Emer McCarthy: