Kenya Drought

I just returned from Kenya where the drought has caused Kenya to declare a "national disaster". I saw hundreds of dead animals lying everywhere. Schools are closed in rural areas because the children do not have enough strength to make the walk. People are hungry and during times like these, diseases such as typhoid from drinking bad water are rampant. I know that we cannot feed all of the millions of hungry children, but we can help. If the Lord touches your heart to assist us, you may do so by clicking here, printing and completing the pledge card and sending it, along with your gift to:

NAIROBI, Kenya - Ten million people risk going hungry in Kenya after harvests failed because of drought, the government said Friday.

The government declared a national emergency and will lift the import duty on corn until the next major harvest, which will not be for a year in many areas.

The emergency declaration allows the government to divert money from development projects to food aid and to use disaster funds that are held in reserve, said government spokesman Alfred Mutua.

"It also opens ways for intervention from others," said Mutua. "Our disaster emergency fund is getting depleted."

Finances under strain
Kenya's finances are under strain because of the cost of sheltering and reintegrating 600,000 people displaced by violence following December 2007 elections. More than 1,000 people were killed, and many farmers were too frightened to return home and plant crops.

The government plans to distribute food in drought affected areas and to the poor in urban areas. It also plans to distribute free and subsidized fertilizer, seeds and farm equipment.

The U.N.'s World Food Program is already feeding 1.2 million people in Kenya, said spokesman Peter Smerdon.

The last state of emergency declared because of hunger was more than four years ago.

Isaac Deka and his three exhausted cows cluster under a thorny acacia tree that provides little shelter from the midday sun.

They are all that is left of a proud herd of 55 Borana cattle that were the wealth and livelihood of the 45-year-old Maasai pastoralist, his two wives and five children.

"One of them is already lying down and it will not be able to stand again. By tomorrow or the day after I am not sure any of them will still be alive," said Deka.

Cattle are the economic lifeblood of around 150,000 Maasai scattered in homesteads across Kenya's southern Rift Valley, but now they are dropping where they stand, their parched bodies stinking in the red dust.

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