Sunday, August 21, 2011
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It means 5,750 children in Buna under the age of 5 qualify to be classified in the WHO emergency threshold. UNICEF shows neighboring Somalia has more than a million children's lives at immediate risk, and those who are severely malnourished are already at 50 percent. Hundreds are forced to flee the famine as they have seen both their livestock and children disintegrate until they reach a safe haven in either Kenya or Ethiopia. Villages and towns in northern Kenya are among the hardest hit by the current drought. The most affected neighboring villages to Buna and Wajir, are dilman-yale, kajaja and hadado where livestock and people in the area have migrated in search of water and pasture.
The local hospital can hardly cope with the influx of patients occasioned by the soaring numbers of children and the aged suffering from malnutrition. Buna sub district hospital is a dilapidated structure that has only six beds and 6 nursing staff.
This state of affairs is worsened by a shortage of basic drugs and analgesics to offer to its 25000 residents and in addition to those who walk from neighboring villages in search of medical and food aid. Male and female patients are compelled by circumstances to share common wards……the strained medical staff now face a new dilemma posed by the drought in addition to an influx of cases of malaria, diarrhorea, skin and fungal infections…. a situation that has become unbearable for many.
So bad are the conditions at the hospital that Abdeya Aden a resident and one of the many Kenyan Somalis who live in Buna has been unable to walk for the last 10 years after she sustained an injury to her ankle. The hospital could not offer her decent treatment … she is now not only incapacitated, she is also hungry and Abdeya like many residents is determined to fast despite all this.
Food aid in the horn of Africa has become critical, but some pre-existing problems have served to make a bad situation worse.