Last June, I travelled to northern Kenya and saw the impact of the worst drought the region had seen in more than 70 years. There were animal carcasses everywhere, including of goats, donkeys, cattle and camels. Few animals were left to provide milk or meat or to sell to get money for food. There were no crops to harvest and all this was compounded by rising food, fuel and fertiliser prices as a result of the war in Ukraine. I travelled back to the same region two weeks ago. This year the rains came to some parts of the region, but they did not arrive gradually. They arrived in a sudden torrent and the rock-hard earth was unable to absorb them. It was like rain hitting a plastic sheet. Within a short while, communities went from living on parched earth to being knee or thigh deep in water. Homes were destroyed, entire villages were cut off and cholera had broken out. There was no means to effectively capture the water that fell. While there was rain, there was still no water and women in Golbo, Moyale continue to walk 24 km each way to get their daily water. However, the area is certainly much greener and looks more fertile now compared with last year but there are still significant levels of hunger. There is now a lot more grazing for livestock but 90% of the livestock died last year in the drought and it will take years for those livestock levels to be rebuilt.
The remaining livestock now looks much healthier because they have grazing, and they look much healthier than their owners, to be honest. The only seeds available for planting were low-quality maize seeds, and those are usually used primarily as animal fodder. The communities in Moyale now have to wait months for harvest time before they can be sure of food. Food they would normally have fed to their animals, they will now feed to their families. In other areas such as Ngurunit and Laisamis, the rains came but made little difference. The land remains parched and dry.
Every community I met, bar one, listed food and water as their top two priorities. Access to water is a huge anxiety. Communities now realise that just because the rains came in some areas this season does not mean they will come next season. Four years of drought cannot be rectified by one rainy season. They talked openly about the impact of climate change and how parlous they feel trying to figure out if the last four years of drought are a once in a generation event or if this is the new weather pattern. Will there be years of drought followed by a year of floods and then back to drought? That uncertainty causes ongoing fear and anxiety about how they will survive. The Samburu community, with whom I have been working for the past eight years, spoke to me the first time about education being a priority for their children. Climate change means they need to find new ways of making a living. They have to reassess their whole traditional way of life, because they will not survive otherwise. A local chief in the first community I visited in Moyale thanked us for being there to help them. We helped them to set up self-help groups, gave them cash transfers, supported them in building a water catchment area and gave them goats and beehives when they had nothing else. Had they not had that, they would not have survived.
What I saw happen in Kenya is not just limited to that country. Climate change is a deeply unequal process. In our work all over the world we can see that poorer communities are those being left behind, and are picking up the tab for a crisis they did not create. That is why it is essential for Ireland to do its fair share of the global effort needed. It is about getting our emissions down significantly and providing climate finance support for developing countries as part of the Paris Agreement and the UN climate summits. These are as yet undelivered. Ireland has made progress in this regard. However, as set out in the Dóchas submission and in research from Christian Aid Ireland and Trócaire previously shared with the committee, we are still far from what is needed.
After Kenya I travelled to Renk. Last week I spent the week in Renk on the border between South Sudan and Sudan, where I met refugees and returnees who were fleeing the conflict in Sudan. It is just over two months since the conflict erupted in Sudan, and yet when I was at the border crossing at Jodha, there were still hundreds of people crossing the border each day. They brought with them only what they had on their backs and what they could carry. Some of the stories were horrific, such as that of Rebecca, a widow with children aged between ten and 25, who saw her neighbours and their children being raped by members of the Rapid Support Forces. She managed to flee. She used all her money to rent a car to get herself and all of her children to the border. Along the way she took in two unaccompanied children.
When people arrive at the border, they are tired but hopeful. Their hopes are quickly dashed when they realise there is absolutely no support for them. The transit centre in Renk is meant to hold between 1,000 and 2,000 people for a few days. It is a transit centre. They then move on. However, the reality is that there are more than 12,000 people there and it is severely overcrowded. Because it is a transit centre, very few services are available. The only food provided is sorghum. There are no latrines. There is open defecation. Between the smell and the flies it is just horrific.
At the border, all under-fives are assessed for malnutrition, and blue wristbands are given to those considered particularly vulnerable. After living in the camp for weeks with only sorghum to eat, it is really obvious that malnutrition is a huge issue. I saw many children who were severely malnourished. The first day I was there, four children died in the camp from diarrhoea and fever.
There is no space for new arrivals in the transit centre, but people are unaware of that when they arrive at the border. They quickly discover there is no shelter, food or water for them. I spoke to Mary, an elderly lady who had travelled with her daughter, Martha. She told me she could not sleep at night because she was terrified in case the rains came. There was only plastic sheeting to provide a little protection against the sun, not to protect against the rain. That night there was a huge thunderstorm, and the very next day everywhere was flooded.
The Government of South Sudan does not seem to be in a position to move people on, so the situation is only going to get worse. Currently, in addition to the approximately 12,000 in the transit centre, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 in the surrounding area. They get no support. One of the main questions people asked me was why nobody in the international community is interested in them. Why does the world not want to help them in the same way they are helping Ukrainians? Why does their conflict and situation not matter? Why is it always the poorest and most vulnerable who are left behind? That is why our asks in the Dóchas document are so important. There are things Ireland can actually do to change this. However, I have to say that Ireland was represented there last week through Christian Aid Ireland and Goal, but there were very few other organisation around at that time.
