IOM is to help pastoralists in north-eastern Kenya who are
suffering from the extreme effects of drought and are sharing scant
resources with large numbers of Somalis who continue to arrive in
the area on a daily basis.

The organisation is spending USD 400,000, provided by the UN
Central Emergency Response Fund, (CERF) to assist some 40,000
vulnerable pastoralists in the region, 60 per cent of them being
women.

The funds will be used in a six-month emergency programme that
will involve re-stocking households with camels, which are more
resistant to drought and diseases than the traditional goats and
sheep and will provide milk to beneficiaries.

The emergency programme will also include the rehabilitation of
water retention structures and wells along livestock migratory
routes, the provision and distribution of health kits and
supplement feed for the livestock. Community training for herders
on pasture storage, conservation and use will also take place.

This initiative will involve local communities in the
construction and maintenance of efficient water harvesting
structures, which should help provide additional income through
food growing activities that will help beneficiaries cope with ever
increasing food prices.

IOM will work in partnership with the Kenyan government's
Ministry of Livestock, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO),
local NGOs and community leaders.

Pastoralist communities are particularly affected by the drought
as they face the imminent threat of losing their livelihoods as
their weakened herds struggle to survive disease, hunger and thirst
in an increasingly desperate search for pasture and water.

While humanitarian agencies at Dadaab are focusing on providing
much needed assistance to the daily flow of refugees, more
attention needs to the paid to the needs of the host
communities.

The three Daadab refugee camps, which were originally meant to
shelter 90,000 people, are now accommodating more than 383,000
people, making them the largest refugee camps in the world.

Meanwhile, IOM's project to provide emergency assistance to
counter acute watery diarrhoea outbreaks in the northern Turkana
County has received a boost from CERF funding to the tune of USD
115,000.

Under the project, IOM will work in close collaboration with the
local and international health partners, including AMREF, WHO, IRC
and MSF, to reach some 55,000 vulnerable individuals, mostly women
and children under the age of five. This group is particularly at
risk of water borne diseases due to the drought which is forcing
them to use contaminated water.

IOM will assist in the provision of essential drugs and
equipment to the district medical centres and will contribute
towards the containment of the outbreak through the provision of
water purification tablets and through community awareness raising
activities.

IOM has in the past implemented three emergency health response
projects through CERF allocations following cholera outbreaks in
northern Kenya.

For more information, please contact:

Galev Aleksandar

IOM Nairobi

Tel: +254 20444174/164 Ext. 236

       +254 733860045

E-mail: "mailto:AGalev@iom.int">AGalev@iom.int