Life or death in East Africa
They travelled along the desert track for 17 days. They had no food. The road was long and treacherous, with Amina at risk of being raped or robbed, and her children at the mercy of wild animals or human predators.
On their 730 kilometre journey* from Somalia to Kenya, Amina had to beg for food for the baby and the three little ones. She did not eat nor sleep, forced to keep watch over them for the dangers of the road.
But if she had stayed, Amina (pictured below) knew she and her four children would certainly die in Mogadishu. They had struggled for year after year as her crops failed in the drought and her country was ripped apart by civil war.
In the end, it was the only way she knew to save their lives, and so, with four children aged under eight-years-old, Amina set off on the marathon walk from her country to the next.
When they finally arrived at the world’s last refugee camp, Dadaab, in Kenya, Amina was exhausted but relieved. Unlike some women who make the journey, she did not have to leave any of her children along the way.
“When I met Amina, I asked how she ate on the journey. She didn’t,” said CARE Australia worker, Andrew Buchanan, who as at Dadaab Camp when Amina walked in.
“She hadn’t slept for fear of leaving her two boys and two girls unprotected.
“At least she hadn’t had to make the appalling decision, as some women have, of abandoning the weakest child along the track because it’s the only way the others will survive.
“Women arrive here having suffered rape, violence or robbery. Amina isn’t sure whether her children will ever see their father again. People are making unimaginable decisions.”
The refugee camp at Dadaab stretches across fifty square kilometres and is divided into three sub-camps, each the size of an Australian suburb. Kenyan security forces patrol the camp, which has come under attack by Somali warlords, as the influx continues of refugees escaping East Africa’s worst drought in half a century.
Every day, as the East African famine crisis deepens, more than 1500 new refugees arrive from Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya to the confronting sight of the camp, their only hope of survival.
Around 460,000 refugees occupy facilities designed for a maximum capacity of 90,000 and aid agencies expect Dadaab’s population to top half a million by Christmas.
Andrew Buchanan, who has worked for CARE Australia for two years, travelled from Dadaab out into Ethiopia where CARE is providing relief to rural sharecropping villages
“Most of these people are pastoralists whose animals have died, their crops have failed and their children are starving,” Buchanan said.
In the town of Moyale, in Ethiopia’s Borena region, he met Kofobicha (pictured below in the middle), the 55-year-old chief, who has lived through many droughts but didn’t expect to survive this one.
“I accept I will die,” Kofobicha told Andrew Buchanan, “all the elders will die – we have come to terms with that. But we are not prepared for children to die.”
Andrew Buchanan and fellow aid workers decided to intervene. They told the elders they would buy the village’s cattle, the eight dying and the two healthy, slaughter the dying stock for human consumption and train the villagers in the ways of rearing animals in drought.
“It’s all about saving human life,” he said.
Andrew Buchanan worked at a London advertising agency until he had a “crisis of conscience and decided to follow my heart”, joining U.K. aid agency Oxfam before migrating to Australia and joining CARE.
He now has three daughters, aged six years, four years and 18 months.
“I’ve spoken to the elder ones about it. My four-year-old thought I was going over to Africa to build a shop to sell food,” he said.
“They’ve told their friends and there’s now going to be a fundraiser at the school.”
And what of Amina at Dadaab and Chief Kofobicha and his village?
“Amina is lucky to have reached a place where she can supply her basic needs of food and water to her family and the children will have an opportunity to go to school.
“Kofobicha? I will have to find out. Perhaps because of CARE’s intervention, he and his fellow elders did not have to die.”
* A map of refugees' typical journey to Dadaab:
Five fast facts about the latest conditions in the Horn of Africa:
- Despite concerted humanitarian response, rain and aid donations from Australians, famine persists in Somalia
- Around 250,000 people face imminent starvation and death
- Death rates, especially among children, remain extremely high
- Rains in Ethiopia have improved water availability, but this region remains in acute food crisis
- Food availability remains at crisis levels among the poor and very poor due to high food prices.
To find out how you can help and to find out more about CARE Australia's work, click here.
Last Updated: Wednesday 21 December, 2011