United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien visited Mogadishu on Monday, speaking with residents at the Zone K Internal Displacement Camp Settlement as representatives of the international community evaluated Somalia’s deepening humanitarian crisis. O’Brien, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), was joined by Michael…
A South African hospital has suspended some services and limited its admissions to critical patients only because of a water shortage, adding to the woes that the country’s drought and usage patterns have created. A health department spokesman said that at Themba Hospital in Kabokweni, not far from Kruger National…
As the drought in Somalia deepens, the nation’s president is appealing for humanitarian aid to help millions of Somali people without food and water. Hassan Sheik Mohamud said the Somali government needs additional resources from both its own citizens and the international community to meet overwhelming need. The drought is…
The Zambian government began Wednesday to send food relief to neighboring Malawi and Zimbabwe, in an effort to address food shortages in the drought-stricken nations of southern Africa. Shipment of the 48,000 metric tons of maize is part of a USD$2.4 billion humanitarian response coordinated through the Southern African Development…
In the midst of the worst drought in 50 years, Ethiopia’s population finds just some relief in the rain reaching parts of the country, Thomson Reuters Foundation reported. In February this year the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) wrote that over ten million people are in need of food…
Save the Children has warned that Ethiopia is facing its worst drought in half a century. This comes only days before the 26th African Union Summit in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Due to the El Nino induced drought conditions which began in June last year the country is suffering; 10.2…
Today President Jacob Zuma of South Africa attended the President’s Question Session at the National Assembly for this year where a number of important issues were addressed. One of the major focuses was the drought that has greatly affected the country. Zuma, however, has not declared the situation a national disaster….
South Africa is facing a massive drought one of the worst in the past two decades. On Friday the South African government gave a media briefing on the conditions of the drought in the country. The briefing detailed that “South Africa is a water scarce country and ranks as one…
Botswana is currently going through a major drought caused by below-average rainfall creating reduced grazing conditions for farmers, the acting Agriculture Minister Patrick Ralotsia said earlier this year. Ian Khama, Botswana’s president, recently declared a countrywide drought for the first time since 1984. “This year is evolving to be a…