Livestock across East Africa are facing complete ”decimation” from a drought that has already killed tens of thousands of animals across the region, a British veterinary charity said on Thursday.
With drought-related human deaths already reported in Kenya and Somalia, cattle, camels and donkeys are dying at alarming rates in some areas, adding to the misery of their livestock-dependent pastoralist populations, it said.
In Kenya’s northeast Mandera district alone, 90% of donkeys, 70% of cattle and 60% of camels have perished since the drought began to bite, the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (Spana) said.
”It’s horrendous, cataclysmic,” the group’s chief Jeremy Hulme told Agence France-Presse. ”If camels start dying, then things are really tough.”
The charity lauded international appeals for aid for the millions of people affected by the drought but decried their omission of assistance for animals, noting the central importance they play in nomadic life.
”For too long now there’s been a mindset among those involved in emergency relief response which results in little value being placed on the role of working animals and livestock,” it said in a statement.
”These are people whose culture and social structure can only be sustained if there is a relief effort in parallel with the humanitarian response which encompasses their livestock,” Spana said.
The group said it would donate eight tonnes of fodder each day for a month to feed animals in Mandera and urged others to follow suit. – AFP
