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The U.S. government is giving an additional $200 million to support humanitarian initiatives in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, where more than 20 million people are in need of food, water and medicine. Lack of rain in the region has led to the driest conditions in 40 years.

Speaking online to journalists, Sarah Charles of the U.S. Agency for International Development outlined how drought has impacted the lives of millions in the Horn of Africa.

“The frequency and severity of drought in the region and the scale of humanitarian needs are increasing, exposing the devastating trend of climate change that disproportionately affects the world’s poorest communities. Already 1.5 million livestock has died, and crops are non-existent in affected areas. In some areas, including Kenya and southern and south-eastern Ethiopia, conflict has broken out over scarce resources. An alarming number of children are acutely malnourished and we are also seeing a devastating report from Somalia of young girls being forced to marry in exchange for food and water,” she said.

Charles said Tuesday the U.S. government is providing another $200 million to help get food and medical supplies to millions in the region. The aid will boost U.S. government aid for drought victims to more than $360 million this year.

However, that number is just a fraction of the funding needed. U.N. humanitarian agencies say they will need $4.4 billion to fully scale up their relief efforts in the region.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than six million people in the Horn are feeling the impact of the drought. It says more than 750,000 have left their homes in search of water, food and pasture. Some 3 million people are internally displaced in Somalia alone.

In even more dire news, U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said 2 million children in the Horn are at risk of starving to death.

Aid agencies trying to help hungry people in northern Ethiopia have been hampered by the region’s volatile security situation. Charles said the problem is especially acute in the Tigray region.

“We are facing in Tigray almost unprecedented challenges with access obstruction in terms of bureaucratic obstruction, conflict, violence, difficulty reaching those who are most in need of assistance. And we have seen over the last two weeks a small convoy of assistance, the latest one yesterday reached Mekele for the first time in several months,” she said.

A poor start to the rainy season has heightened fears the drought and its impact in the Horn will get worse.

Humanitarian agencies say that even if good rains arrive, they cannot quickly reverse the suffering the drought has caused to millions.

Source: Voice of America

One of the citizens feeling the pinch of rising prices in Zimbabwe is Christine Kayumba. She says she can’t afford to buy bread for her four dependents on her salary of less than $250 a month — because a loaf now costs more than $2.

The high school English teacher says she cooks a bland, thin porridge three times a day, and rarely serves rice as it is now expensive too.

“This price increase of bread has reduced me to nothing,” she told VOA. “I don’t feel I am still the mother figure, the bread winner for my family. Because I am failing to provide, each and every morning they wake up crying for porridge, crying for bread.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, has led to bread prices soaring in importing countries like Zimbabwe. Most impacted are children, said Kayumba, as shortage means they are forced to seek food elsewhere.

“You see bread is something with these children. They want it. Even from next doors, if they see them [neighbors] drinking tea, they will eat there.”

Tafadzwa Musarara is the chairman of the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe, which imports grain. He said the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the main cause for the price hike.

“As early as November last year, we were unable to load wheat from that region because political tensions had gone high, and insurers revoked their coverages. This is a supplier who was supplying us with good wheat, accounting for 65% of the wheat that we need.”

Musarara said the impact of the crisis in Ukraine was immediately felt in Zimbabwe. “Suddenly we woke up without that supply… the inflation on the price of bread, the increase on the price of bread is an imported factor.”

Musarara added that a consignment of Zimbabwe’s wheat has been stuck in the embattled Ukrainian city of Mariupol for weeks now. He added that the war is pushing people to look for ways to meet the need in the country. “Now we are making our efforts to see how we can get [it] from other countries. [In] Australia, there is the issue of floods, which affected their agriculture. We are now pushing towards getting wheat from Canada and other countries.”

Andrew Matibiri is the CEO of Zimbabwe Agricultural Society, a group responsible for promoting agricultural development in the country. He said the current wheat shortage the country is facing can also serve as an opportunity.

“This is an opportune time for our farmers to produce more, for the government and the private sector to work together, hand in hand, to support farmers who want to go into wheat production,” Matibiri said. “And thank God! We have been having some late rainfalls, which have been helping land preparations. So, all in all, the future of wheat production in this country is good.”

Matibiri said he has confidence in his country’s capacity to face the challenge. “We have shown that we can produce enough for our needs and to produce even more so that we can export to neighboring countries and others who are in need of wheat.”

For Kayumba, that would certainly be good news since she can’t afford to buy bread for her family as it is currently double the price it used to be.

Source: Voice of America

Authorities in Cameroon say anglophone separatists have joined forces with Nigerian militants to shut down nearly all trade across the two countries’ border. Cameroon depends on Nigeria for 70% of basic commodities and most of them are transported across the land border. Authorities say about 90% of trade has been halted as militants from both sides attack and abduct merchants.

Njume Peter Ambang is a lawmaker from Cameroon’s restive southwest region on the border with Nigeria. He said fighters within the past two months have taken control of many businesses, including palm oil plantations in Ndian, a division in the Southwest region.

“Maritime business has collapsed. The oil business has all collapsed. Palm oil fields have been seized by the separatists. They harvest the crops, they mill and sell. These guys are working with area boys (armed groups) in Nigeria,” he said.

Ambang was speaking in the Ndian capital, Mundemba, Sunday during a meeting to plead with local fighters to drop their guns and stop harassing merchants.

Cameroon’s military says several hundred fighters chased from towns and villages during raids by government troops relocated to the border with Nigeria. The military says the fighters have killed at least two dozen merchants and abducted scores of others for ransom since January.

Capo Daniel is deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, or ADF, one of the largest separatist groups in Cameroon.

He said many fighters have been deployed to the border with Nigeria but denies they fled intensive fighting with Cameroonian government troops.

Daniel said Cameroon’s separatists collaborate with Nigeria’s Eastern Security Network of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, a secessionist group that advocates for the creation of an independent state in eastern Nigeria.

Daniel said the Ambazonia and Biafra groups are collaborating to help each other and undermine government control of the border area.

“We want to put in place our own security network to regulate trade and to control the movement of goods and persons between Biafra and Ambazonia. We will no longer allow Cameroon and Nigeria to enforce their law on the border between Biafra and Ambazonia. We will put an end to the exploitation of the Biafra people as well as the Ambazonia people as we work in alliance with our counterparts across the border in Biafra land,” he said.

Daniel said the ADF and IPOB have been able to stop both Cameroon and Nigeria from collecting revenue from the sales of basic commodities and cash crops including rice, maize, tubers, plantain and cocoa in border localities.

He also said fighters are punishing merchants who collaborate with the two governments by paying taxes or agreeing to be escorted by government troops.

Nigeria and Cameroon have promised to crush all separatists who do not surrender.

The two countries’ governments announced in February 2021 that they would work together to combat separatists and armed groups.

Cameroon this week said it deployed more troops to the border to protect civilians, merchants and their goods.

Source: Voice of America