Ranchers in Kenya: threatened by starvation and Kalashnikovs

In Kenya, the desperate search for grass is forcing ranchers into dangerous regions: there are pastures in the higher mountains, but there are also other herders with guns. People keep dying in fights for the herds.

The 14 kids that Logialam Lodia has locked in a hut so that they don’t run away are complaining excitedly. Lodia clicks, the little animals know the sound, it means that he is about to feed them milk. The mother goats are out with Lodia’s eldest son and the rest of the herd in search of grass.

Not an easy task: in Turkana, a region in northern Kenya, everything has dried up and three rainy seasons have already failed. Only a few of Lodia’s once large herd survived the drought. “I only have 42 goats left. That’s all I have left from my 1,200 sheep and goats,” says Lodia.

The cattle thieves are waiting in the mountains

Turkana and many other regions of Kenya are experiencing the worst drought in 40 years. It has rained a little there in the past few days, but far too little. However, compared to many other pastoralists in northern Kenya, Lodia and his neighbors have one advantage: their village is not far from the mountains of nearby Uganda. It rains more there, the animals find grass – but the area is dangerous, says Lodia.

“Ever since the drought started, we have always driven our herds into the Ugandan mountains because we couldn’t find any more food here.” But where the fertile grass is, the cattle rustlers waited. “They often attack us, we’re afraid of them. If we think the danger is particularly great, we drive our animals back down to the plains, back to Kenya, as quickly as possible. But because there’s nothing to eat here, we dare to go to the mountains again and again.”

In recent months they have been constantly on the run with their animals, from the drought and from cattle thieves with their guns. Because their sheep, goats and cattle were already weakened by the little food, many would not have survived the long distances.

Dead by drought and rain

Benedict Mailu estimates that 40 percent of the cattle did not survive the drought. He manages Welthungerhilfe’s projects in Turkana. And he believes more animals will die – even though it has rained here and there now.

“If the rain continues in the next few weeks, the grass will grow back, the rivers will carry more water again, maybe the groundwater supplies will be replenished – at the moment the groundwater level is very low.” On the other hand, the rain is a danger for the goats and other animals, which are very weakened by the drought. “Some may survive the wet and cold, others will probably die from the rain,” he says.

Children cannot be fed

Adung Longolan Ikoel has taken some goatskins from her hut and is throwing them on the ground. Ikoel lives in a different village from Lodia, further away from the mountains. Only in the morning did she stretch another goatskin on the ground with wooden sticks to dry in the sun. “I lost ten goats to the drought, nine died yesterday due to the rain. My last goat died this morning,” she says. Only two kids are left to her.

Ikoel points to one of the skins: that was the mother of the one surviving kid. Then she points to the fresh skin of this morning: and that’s the mother of the second. The two little goats probably won’t survive long either, says Ikoel. “I don’t have anything to feed them. I don’t know how to feed my kids now either. We depended on our goats, without them I can’t do anything for my kids.”

Depends on animals for survival

The semi-nomadic pastoralists depend on their animals for survival: They drink the milk, eat the meat or sell an animal when they need money. Those who have lost their herd will soon follow themselves.

Unless he or she gets help at short notice. Among other things, Welthungerhilfe has started to distribute concentrated feed for the weakest animals. It also provides logistical support to the government in distributing supplementary food to severely malnourished children, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. In Turkana alone, almost 64,000 people are severely malnourished.

Support for Welthungerhilfe

There is a lot of activity under a big tree: helpers have set up a mobile clinic so that people don’t have to travel the long way to the next town. Small children are weighed and measured under the tree, and the helpers also note the circumference of their upper arms. It shows whether a child is malnourished or not. If necessary, the mothers get additional therapeutic food for two weeks to take home with them, then they should come back, get the next ration and the helpers check whether the children are stronger.

Not everyone can be helped

A helper puts the measuring tape around the upper arm of little Lopeto Ebenyo. It shows red: the two-year-old is severely malnourished. His mother is worried but not surprised: “It’s because of the drought. All our goats are dead, we have no milk and nothing to eat,” says Emunia Emariu. Her seven other children are no better, says the mother. But they are older than five, so she didn’t bring the others with her in the first place.

The nutrition program is aimed only at children under the age of five, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women. Even for them, the available help is not enough, which is why the nutritional status of the others is not even registered.

The need overwhelms the helpers, says Benedict Mailu from Welthungerhilfe. “All aid organizations together with the Kenyan government have so far reached maybe half of those who are in need. But by no means all of those in need,” says Benedict Mailu. Those who get nothing have to see how they survive.