This archive report was first published on 21 September 2021.
Published on September 21, 2021, a report by the Kenya Red Cross revealed that more than 150,000 people in Samburu County are in dire need of relief food due to drought and hunger.
According to Maurice Anyango, the Upper Eastern Region Manager of the Kenya Red Cross, women and children below five years are the most affected after men migrated with livestock to different areas in search of water and pasture.
"Mothers, expectant women, children below five and the elderly are the most affected. Their men have migrated with the families' livestock leaving them without milk," Anyango said.
As a mitigation measure, the Kenya Red Cross distributed 15 metric tonnes of relief food to at least 500 families in Nkaroni and other five villages in Samburu East.
Each family received ten kilograms of rice, four kilograms of beans, cooking oil, and 500 grams of salt to last them for about two weeks.
"We believe this will go a long way in improving food security at a household level and we are also supporting 500 households in Samburu North with cash transfer for the next two months," Anyango said.
Residents of Nkaroni village, such as Emmanuel Leleruk and Julia Lepoora, have resorted to digging shallow wells on dry riverbeds in the evening for water to collect overnight.
"If you are lucky you can find at least five litres of water inside the shallow well in the morning if wild animals haven’t drunk it. It is never enough for domestic use and for our livestock and that’s why men have migrated with the cows," Leleruk said.
"We are just stepping on barren land, there is no grass. People have migrated with livestock to different areas and there is hunger," Lepoora lamented.
