The drought situation in the country has raised the rates of starvation to the highest in recent times with up to 3.5 million citizens facing a shortage of food and water. President Ruto thereby offered relief food to save the situation.
The unfolding of events has pushed several Kenyans to death from hunger with women, particularly lactating mothers, suffering from malnutrition.
The government through the President intervened to assist in addressing the challenge at hand through the distribution of relief food to counties facing the dire challenge.
Ruto flagged off relief food to direly affected areas with the aim of saving lives due to the lack of sufficient rain that saw farmers incur losses on their farm produce, which was unable to sustain families or the nation as a whole.
Despite the flagging off of the relief food to the nationwide areas, there has been a call for inclusion by the Tana River residents spearheaded by Baraqwa — a non-governmental organization in the county.
Following the hunger and lack of water in the region, the Founder of Baraqwa Bashir has called on the government to engage Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the process of relief food distribution to ensure that marginalized communities are reached.
This comes after an address by Tana River Senator Danson Mungatana on Sartuday at Madogo where he called on the government to re-awaken the irrigation schemes in the areas so that the people not only depend on the relief aid but are also able to provide for themselves.
Mungatana further urged CS for Water nominee Alice Wahome to work round the clock to revive the Bura and Hola irrigation schemes which have dwindled over the years.
“We are a very hard-working community and all we know is farming. Unfortunately, lack of water has been our biggest undoing. We cannot continue being beggars and relying on relief food when we can do farming,” he said.
Baraqwa Community NGO is appealing the Tana River County to be involved in the relief food disbursement indicating that it’s not only the North Eastern and Eastern areas that are faced with hunger, and scarcity of food.
“I plea that the government supports Tana River as well because the citizens are now left crying with no way ahead as they wait patiently for the relief food to be flagged by the president,” she implored.
She says that the long wait for help is costing and endangering the lives of the residents.
