Long wait for food aid

The last food delivery was a month ago

By Richard Lister in Dihun

We are the first outsiders to come to Dihun, in the drought-stricken Somali region of Ethiopia, since a grain delivery arrived from the World Food Programme last month.

The village elders say it was not nearly enough to go around and each family has been trying to eke out a ration of about 8kg.

It is virtually all they have to eat. Many elderly people and children have such weakened digestion systems that they find the grain difficult to eat.

Water has become an even more pressing problem. The village well is dry, as are all 18 others along the river valley nearby.

The nearest water source is a four-hour walk through sun-baked scrubland. Many have been trading part of their grain ration for water.

Some of the children and elderly people are badly malnourished and in need of nutritional supplements, which aid agencies are struggling to get to them.

The starving can find it hard to digest grain

The International Committee of the Red Cross is continuing to expand its deliveries of emergency food aid throughout the region, which has been worst-affected by the three-year drought.

But roads here are unsuitable for trucks and there is no airstrip.

It is likely to be several more days before badly-needed food aid does arrive, and many are no longer prepared to wait.

They are making the 150km trek south to Gode, where food supplies have been flown in.

The story of Dihun is being replicated in villages like it all over the region and food aid cannot get here soon enough.