Starving monkeys have started attacking children in Ethiopia with extreme drought sparking ‘unnatural animal behaviour’ as country is hit with severe malnutrition
- Tens of thousands of children in Ethiopia are suffering from deadly malnutrition
- The East African country is being ravaged by drought, displacement and conflict
- Save the Children said the drought is also causing animals to act ‘unnaturally’
- Families have been forced to fend monkeys off with sticks, while warthogs have also begun to encroach on people’s homes in search of food and water
- The charity said 185,000 children are suffering from ‘most deadly form of malnutrition’ while someone is dying from hunger every 48 seconds in region
Children are being attacked by hungry monkeys and threatened by starving warthogs in East Africa as drought, displacement and conflict ravage the region.
Ten of thousands of children in Ethiopia are suffering from the ‘most deadly’ form of malnutrition due to the drought in the east and south of the country, British charity Save the Children said Thursday, which is also causing animals to act ‘unnaturally’.
The charity said it has received reports of families fending off starving monkeys with sticks, while warthogs have begun encroaching on people’s homes in search of food.
Children are being attacked by hungry monkeys and threatened by starving warthogs in East Africa as drought, displacement and conflict ravage the region. Pictured: A two-year-old boy is seen in the Somali region on Ethiopia as his family leave their village in search of food
Save the Children said it has received reports of families in Ethiopia fending off starving monkeys with sticks, while warthogs have begun encroaching on people’s homes in search of food. It said drought had caused animals to start acting unnaturally
‘Monkeys never normally attack people, but the situation is so terrible that they are resorting to unnatural behaviour like this especially in Dawa and Shebelle areas, the first areas affected by the drought,’ Abdirizak Ahmed, Save the Children’s Operations Manager for the eastern regions of Ethiopia, told MailOnline.
‘We understand the children were unharmed, but its filled people with fear about what the future will bring,’ he added, before describing the situation as ‘dire’.
‘It’s not only monkeys but even starving warthogs have been encroaching homes. What used to be wild animals that ran at the scent of people now refuse to leave.
‘They pester people and enter homes to look for water and anything edible. They come to villages without fear just to survive,’ he explained.
‘The elders we talked to compared this to droughts during their time and this also a first time to them – Monkeys are coming down from the bush and attacking children and women who are carrying something. They think that it’s water and try to drink or take belongings.’
Four consecutive rainy seasons have failed in the Horn of Africa, with a fifth also expected to fare poorly, causing the worst drought in 40 years and a major hunger crisis spanning Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Over one million people need urgent food aid across the Ethiopian regions of Oromia, SNNP (Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples), Somali and South West, the charity said in a statement.
‘About 185,000 children (are) now estimated to be suffering from the most deadly form of malnutrition,’ the charity said. Save the Children has set up a petition calling on the British government to send aid to the country.
According to the petition, someone in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia is dying from hunger every 48 seconds.
Ten of thousands of children in Ethiopia are suffering from the ‘most deadly’ form of malnutrition due to the drought in the east and south of the country, British charity Save the Children said Thursday, which is also causing animals to act ‘unnaturally’. Pictured: Cattle in the country are seen roaming a dusty plain, while two appear to have died
‘Children – especially small children – are bearing the brunt of a harrowing and multifaceted crisis in Ethiopia,’ said Xavier Joubert, the charity’s country director in Ethiopia.
‘A prolonged, expanding, and debilitating drought is grinding away at their resilience, already worn down by a gruelling conflict and two years of the Covid-19 pandemic,’ he added.
In the Somali region – one of the worst affected – the malnutrition rate jumped 64 percent in the past year, according to Save the Children.
During the same period, more than 50,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition, which requires emergency treatment to prevent death, were recorded, the non-profit said.
Much of the region’s pastoral nomadic community was on ‘the brink of starvation’, it said, with families reporting ‘that many children are only being fed one meal per day.’
The record drought has affected about 8.1 million people in Africa’s second most populous nation, which has also been suffering the consequences of a 19-month conflict in the north.
Ahmed (pictured with his children and a donkey cart), a 40-year-old father of seven who lives in the Somali region, said he had recently lost his livestock in the drought. As a result, he was forced to leave his village with his family in search of food and water
About 30 million people or a quarter of Ethiopia’s population need humanitarian assistance, Save the Children said.
Insufficient rainfall has destroyed crops, killed livestock and forced huge numbers of people to leave their homes in search of food and water across Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
The dire conditions have been exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, which has contributed to soaring food and fuel costs, while grain exports are being blocked by Russian warships from leaving the country that would otherwise feed millions.
Ahmed, a 40-year-old father of seven who lives in the Somali region, said he had recently lost his livestock in the drought. As a result, he was forced to leave his village with his family in search of food and water.
‘I do not know how to feed my children,’ he said.
‘The rain failed. The grass withered. My sheep and goats died, along with hundreds and thousands of animals from our village. We packed our meagre possessions on the donkey cart and set out at midnight.’
Ahmed’s name was changed to protect his identity.
Women from the internally displaced persons (IDP) camp of Guyah, 100 kms of Semera, Afar region, Ethiopia wait to have their children screened by health personnel on May 17, 2022
Meanwhile, the humanitarian response is suffering from a lack of funds, with a February appeal by the UN’s World Food Programme raising less than four percent of the cash needed.
East Africa endured a harrowing drought in 2017 but early humanitarian action averted a famine in Somalia.
When a famine struck the country in 2011, 260,000 people – half of them children under the age of six – died of hunger or hunger-related disorders.
Experts say extreme weather events are becoming more common and more intense due to climate change.
Mr Joubert said: ‘Sadly, in 2022, the crisis in Ethiopia grew in complexity and scale.
‘In the south and the east, prolonged drought is devastating lives and livelihoods; in the north, millions of displaced families barely have access to food, health services, livelihoods; and in the southwest, a hidden conflict is displacing hundreds of thousands.
‘Families who have fled drought or conflict have left with very little, some only with their children and clothes on their backs,’ Joubert continued.
‘Though some families are returning home, they find their houses, hospitals, and schools damaged or destroyed, and their livelihoods lost.’
Save the Children is calling on the United Kingdom and other G7 nations to commit to funding a package that would help the global hunger crisis, ahead of a meeting between the countries this month.
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