Kenya is waiting for the big rains to deal with the worst drought in thirty years.
A not-so-unexpected phenomenon that is drying up fertile land, killing thousands of livestock and burning forests.
The resulting humanitarian crisis speaks of farmers and breeders (40% of Kenyans live off this) reduced to starvation, semi-nomadic communities that fight, often in a bloody manner, to conquer corners of land near water sources or reservoirs.
There is an image that has become dramatically significant in this season more than arid, that of a family of giraffes in the region of Wajir, not far from a nature reserve, which were found dead, exhausted a few hundred meters from the only pool of water present in 50 kilometers. Others made it and managed to drink, but at least 100 died in the area.
If animals, even protected species, risk disappearing, not so much better goes for humans. According to UNICEF, at least 26 million people in East Africa are at risk of dying from complications deriving from lack of food and water. A phenomenon that until now has only been found in some areas that have always been at risk, such as Turkana, the Galbi desert and the Suguta Valley. In and around Wajir, taking advantage of the closure of schools, families have sent their children to relatives in other parts of the country to save them from malnutrition and mothers do not know how to breastfeed their youngest. Now water rationing is affecting areas not only populated by tribes accustomed to moving to survive, but by settled communities who would not know where to go.
In recent days, populous cities such as Eldoret and Nakuru have found themselves having to deal with the lack of water in the pipes, and in other regions the problem has risen above the threshold of attention.
Since September, experts say, much of northern Kenya has received less than 30 percent of normal rainfall. Drought has always plagued the region, but since 1999 its frequency has doubled due to climate change. Now there is drought every two to three years.
But not only that, temperatures have definitely risen everywhere, so the lack of water is compounded by unnatural heat that makes things worse.
According to local weather experts, this year's rainfall will not be above the average of past years, and will arrive as usual first in the Lake Victoria regions (as early as this weekend) and a few days later in the rift valley. The bulk of the rainfall should occur between mid-April and June, while on the coast the downpours could be delayed until May. Africa.