Why is Uganda experiencing a food crisis?
At least 19 people have died of starvation in the country and 1.5 million are at risk of malnutrition, experts warn. A hunger crisis is
At least 19 people have died of starvation in the country and 1.5 million are at risk of malnutrition, experts warn. A hunger crisis is brewing in Uganda as the country battles its worst drought in decades. Crops across the country have failed, and families are losing loved ones as the crisis deepens across the country’s northeastern region and the wider Horn of Africa. At least 19 people have starved to death in the Karamoja region, where 1.5 million people are at risk of malnutrition, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net), an organisation which signals the alarm on food security. The government has now begun emergency food distribution in Karamoja, but the worsening drought is reviving memories of the 2022 hunger crisis, which killed more than 2,000 people. What is behind this crisis and how is the government addressing it? Here’s what we know What has happened? Severe drought in Uganda has triggered rising levels of food insecurity, with the country’s Karamoja region the worst hit, according to Fews Net. The region is vast and dry with unforgiving terrain. Most communities there depend on farming and livestock for survival. Lucia Lomiza told Al Jazeera she is still grieving her husband, whose death, she said, was linked to complications caused by the drought. “Right now, people are burning charcoal to survive. I don’t have the energy to do it. Most of my family members have left the village to go fend for themselves. I’m not the only one suffering from this drought,” she said. Elijah Loore, who heads the disaster management committee in the district, said hungry residents have been arriving at the government office every other day hoping to be given something to eat, but he has little to spare.
“More people are becoming malnourished. Mostly the children, lactating mothers, the elderly, pregnant mothers, most of the disabled who cannot even move to look maybe for something at home,” he told Al Jazeera. What caused this? The Karamoja region has not had rainfall since April, the beginning of the planting season. Kristof Titeca, an assistant professor at the Institute of Development Policy and Management at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, whose work has focused on Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said the food crisis is due to a combination of issues – climate change is just one cause of the drought. “First, there is a climate crisis. With the worsening climate, there’s been a prolonged dry spell … This isn’t the first time this happened in the region. There is also an overall environmental degradation in the region, which is related, with widespread poverty, leading to overgrazing and deforestation,” he said. Conflict between cattle herders and cattle raiders has exacerbated the crisis, with food prices rising. “Lastly, and most importantly, historically, the Karamoja region has been a marginalised region in Uganda. This has been the case since colonisation, and it didn’t improve during Uganda’s successive post-colonial governments,” he said. The United States’s cancellation of foreign aid under President Donald Trump has also contributed to the deepening crisis, Titeca said. “Aid agencies have severely withdrawn their food aid in the country,” he said. “A broader structural solution is needed for Karamoja – it’s not the first food crisis in the area and in the current context, it will unfortunately not be the last,” he added. Job Kijji, the executive director of IDEA, a policy think tank in Uganda, said the real driver of the current crisis is a failure of governance.
The BriefWire