Desperate for food, drought-stricken Kenyans turn to the gingerbread tree

Lotkoy Ebey has just five scrawny goats to her name where she once had 50. She has watched the rest of her animals die as the pasture has dried up due to a prolonged drought in her part of north-western Kenya. In her culture in Turkana, where livestock are not merely a source of money but are central to life itself, the depletion of the herd is a disaster that will be hard to recover from.

Although rains have recently started falling in several parts of the countryand even caused flash floods in some areas, officials caution that relief will not come immediately to Turkana. According to experts at the local National Drought Management Authority, the rains have been uneven, with some parts of Turkana receiving little to none, while the rainfall remains unpredictable and insufficient to offset the impact of the last two failed rainy seasons. The drought also affected a vast stretch of land across East Africa, leaving some 26 million people “facing extreme hunger” in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, according to humanitarian organisation Oxfam.

In Turkana county, the effects of the long drought are visible almost everywhere. Dry riverbeds cut across the landscape. Grazing fields that once supported herds of goats, sheep and camels are bare.

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The animals have suffered but food is also in short supply for their owners. For Ebey, who is in her early 50s, and her household, eating twice a day has become a luxury.

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