Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
14 March 2008
Kampala — Some 1.5 million people are in need of food aid in parts of the country hit by last year's floods and now experiencing drought since January.
The state minister for disaster preparedness, Musa Ecweru, said that a million people are in urgent need of food in Karamoja, in the north-east, and another half-a-million in Teso and Lango, toward the central-north.
"In one of the areas in Karamoja where I went recently to deliver food, old women had been isolated from younger ones. The Karamojong said old people were useless and, therefore, the little food should not be wasted on them," said Ecweru at a national workshop in Kampala, according to the missionary news agency MISNA.
He proposed the establishment of food silos at regional levels to feed people when the need arises. Each year, disasters originating from prolonged drought worsen the vulnerability of the local population through food shortages, famine and starvation.
Ecweru stressed: "The effects of drought can be predicted ahead of time. That means through proper planning, it can be controlled, mitigated or even prevented."
Missionary sources from Moroto confirmed to MISNA that crops were destroyed by the flooding and then the recent drought: "It hasn't rained for months, temperatures have soared to 40 degrees in the shade and here, everything is barren: there is only hot air that raises clouds of dust."
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Old women useless? The only thing an old woman can't do that a young woman can is produce more mouths to feed, and this attitude in a food crisis.
Why don't you compost your sewage, use the compost as fertilizer and stop all food exports.