Jean Johnson, a parishioner from Ipswich, has been to this area many times and gathered some of the information that has led to the current appeal. “In one district of 87,690 people 228 died of hunger in July,” she reports. She has had it confirmed that the two worst districts are Kotido and Napak, which are in the Diocese of Moroto.
A combination of drought and the loss of grain supplies from Ukraine is causing rising mortality in the region. Parish priests and sisters have asked SPICMA to help by setting up feeding centres in schools, parishes and dispensaries.
A Reuters report of July 19 confirmed that over 200 people had died in the region. “People like the elderly, lactating mothers and children are dying silently in their homes. They just succumb to hunger,” Jino Bornd Meri, the head of local government for Kaabong district, in Karamoja region, told Reuters.
You can make donation to the Drought in East Africa appeal via the website spicma.org.
Pictured above is a SPICMA feeding project responding to the East African drought.