The pestilence of Covid is still in the suffocating air, the ground is scorched by drought. Murder and misery seem biblical – if they weren’t so modern.
Indeed, the Sahel and the Maghreb have experienced widespread desertification and with it increasingly frenzied and violent humanitarian crises, especially from Islamic extremists.
In Kenya, the murders in the north do not (yet) have a neo-religious motive. But growing insecurity, in a country seen as a stable humanitarian and diplomatic hub in the war-torn Horn of Africa, is being fueled by many of the same factors that Sahel burned.
After a raid through Marsabit County in June, police seized 200 machine guns, automatic rifles and other weapons along with about 3,000 rounds of ammunition.
As in West Africa, Kenya’s problems are deepened by climate change.
Across the Horn of Africa, that number skyrocketed to 11.6 million.
Ileret, on the northern shore of Lake Turkana, is famously arid. But local nomadic herders have managed to survive, even thrive, in the harsh conditions for centuries. Their herds of goats and camels are periodically fattened with lush pastures that spring up from the savanna when it rains, with occasional rain.
For over two years, it hasn’t. Local officials in the Ileret district told CNN that about 85% of the cattle here have died. The surviving herds are being herded south in search of grazing.
Either way, those left behind have almost nothing left to live for.
Akuagok is a widow living in a manyatta (collection of nomads’ huts) about half an hour north of Ileret. It kept some of the desert wind but little dust from the lungs of her six children.
She survives on a meal every three days, which depends on her being able to sell coal in Ileret to buy the unbound wheat that her older children grind by hand with ice and then mix. with water becomes chapattis or not
“I eat when I can. I don’t eat almost every day. Sometimes when I sell coal, I can eat it once or twice in three days,” she said.
Her youngest child, Arbolo, is just two years old. He lamented as he lay down to measure his height during an approach mission from Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) – but became listless when his arm circumference measurements showed red on the MSF impairment tape nutrition. Red means he is severely malnourished – what most people usually say is “starvation”.
Members of the Akuagok tribe, Daasanach, gathered around her and shouted their own stories of loss – losing friends to illness perhaps from starvation, loss of animals and how now , even if they earn very little cash, it is never enough to get by.
Kenya has experienced lawlessness and land invasions before. But for many, many of whom have even witnessed their ethnic group usurp grazing or violently ravage livestock, Kenya has taken a turn for the worse.
Lemarti Lemar, a Samburu community leader, and a famous musician said he has lost “at least 30” livestock to drought.
“People are just losing everything they own. If a man loses 50 cattle it’s a loss of $25,000 or more. But more dangerous are the animals. moran (warrior) has no livestock to take care of. They are illegally holding guns, they have nothing to do. They have stopped listening to the elders and some have become gangsters,” he told CNN.
“We are losing control,” he added.
Kenya faces a general election in the middle of next month. The process often raises concerns about domestic instability, and if the outcome is disputed, the potential for political violence could escalate.
In marginalized communities across northern counties, urban-dwelling politicians have had to repay the terrible service that is taking place. The government ended and quickly reinstated fuel subsidies in July. But since Kenya’s population is largely concentrated in the center and south of the country, insecurity in the north is not a major electoral issue.
But that could be forced on the central government after the election, as grazing-seeking herders now carry camels for walks on the fences in Isiolo.
Foraging for grasslands, they have infiltrated parks and wildlife sanctuaries, bringing them closer to tourist attractions that are one of Kenya’s biggest sources of export earnings.
No attempt has been made to drive them out but the heavy damage their livestock have suffered to the landscape means it will struggle to recover in the ensuing rains, should they come. .
Past experience across Africa has shown that drought combined with overgrazing means that when rain falls, they wash away the topsoil in large quantities. Once that happens, there is very little left in the desert, after only a few years.
“Anytime you run into people who are hungry and have no choice, you have a security situation. Frank Pope, CEO of the charity Save Elephants, based in Kenya, says know: Samburu National Reserve.
The Pope’s organization also works with elephants in Mali, West Africa, most of which, he says today, are steppes not long ago but now remain only “elephants, goats and rebels.” .”
The combination of drought, soaring food and fuel prices due to distant wars, a growing population, and civil wars right on the doorstep of Kenya is an incendiary mix.
And that could be bad news for humanitarian operations in neighboring Somalia, Ethiopia and South Sudan, which depend on Kenya’s ports, and are relatively quiet, as a base of operations and location. essential position for logistics.
And as the effects of climate change unfold in Kenya, as children face malnutrition and their mothers leave, plus the desperate battle between nomads and herders to survive. For now, this once-stable region is showing little sign that it can cope alone.
