Turkana County in the North of Kenya is a land of extremes. A prolonged drought in 2019 and a season of floods in 2020 killed thousands of animals in the region. Droughts are part of a cycle that is common there and in most parts of the horn of Africa.
Even as weather conditions become increasingly hostile as a result of climate change, humanitarian assistance in the region continues to focus only on the people’s day-to-day needs, leaving out the main source of their livelihoods: their livestock. As a result, every wave of flood or drought leaves these communities poorer with families losing up to 100 animals in a single disaster event.From her conversation with World Animal Protection, Ruth Keah reports that beyond drought and floods, diseases fuelled by natural hazards are further impoverishing pastoral communities. The organization has now designed an online course on the protection of animals during disasters that seeks to increase the number of community animal health workers to make up for the shortage of veterinarians among the pastoral communities.
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