This Sunday we are having a retiring collection for the joint Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) East Africa appeal.
The UN recently declared this crisis as ‘famine’ and estimate that 10 million people across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia are at risk of starvation. Many of those are pastoralists and nomads whose animals have died because of the drought and who now are reliant on aid.
The region is poor and unstable with civil war in Somalia turning drought into famine. The UN are currently trying to negotiate safe passage for aid workers to get to those worst affected. Having learnt from past emergencies in the 70’s and 80’s aid agencies now operate a famine early warning system and it is this that is worrying them about the deepening of this crisis over coming months.
The DEC has expertise in emergency relief, bringing together many of the UK agencies including Christian Aid and Save the Children. In 1995 I was working for Christian Aid and was seconded for nine months to work in a Rwandan refugee camp in Central Africa. The camp was home to 140,000 people living in tents made of plastic sheeting.
Each day lorries arrived from Mombasa port with supplies of maize flour, cooking oil and high protein biscuits. Each day heads of households came to collect supplies for the week. Meanwhile, British government water tankers filled huge reservoirs and OXFAM pipelines sent the water around the camp. This is what our donations can do on the ground and how they keep people alive when all else has failed.
An ancient Communion prayer over the bread and wine declares, “Blessed be God, who feeds the hungry, who raises the poor, who fills our praise.” Amen.
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