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ETHIOPIA: WV trucks water into Afar
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12 December 2002
Residents of drought stricken Afar, Ethiopia, were spending up
to seven hours per day in a desperate hunt for water until a joint World
Vision / Unicef project began trucking in water supplies. World Vision
correspondent Geoffrey Kalebbo records his impressions of Afar.
The sun is scorching and the ground is bare in Afar.
“We have not seen any rain in three years. Without rain, my garden
is wasteland,” says widow Fatuma Ibrahim, a 28-year-old mother of
three.
The people of Afar mostly rear cattle, sheep and goats for a livelihood,
but the animals cannot brave the effects of the drought. Fatuma has lost
17 cows and now has only one cow and two goats.
Fatuma’s daughter Mairam, 5, sits on her mother’s lap and
listens to our conversation. She is an amiable girl but with thinning
limbs because she does not have enough to eat.
Ali Soder an elder in Gumale village says it was common, in good times,
to marry off girls as young as nine years old.
“But because of the famine, most girls are malnourished, and therefore
not strong enough for marriage,” he says.
Fatuma and her family survive on government rations of wheat flour and
borrowing from money- lenders.
They are devout Muslims. Fatuma says her prayers are on these lines:
“I pray for peace, health and ask Allah to save us from this persistent
and severe hunger.”
So far the only good news is children and women no longer walk long distances
for water, because water is delivered to the village by World Vision and
Unicef trucks.
“I am very happy with the water trucking programme. Not just I,
but the entire village,” Fatuma says.
It is coming up to midday but the family wont eat until evening. Mariam
cannot hold any longer. She whines and pulls her mother by the arm towards
their dome shaped hut. She hopes to find something to eat there.
As Fatuma walks little Mariam towards the narrow entrance of their home,
the words of Unicef director Carol Bellamy strike me again.
“We do not have to wait for people to drop dead in Ethiopia before
we do anything.”
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