Politics, war, migration: the anatomy of a humanitarian crisis
This extract is from the Red Cross, by Alexander Matheou. Views expressed are the author’s own.
Another drought has hit the Horn of Africa, but we need to look beyond the lack of rain to find the reasons why these long, dry seasons become humanitarian crises, and these reasons should tell us something about how we need to respond.
When drought hits the Horn, the worst affected are the Somali communities, who live in the driest regions, crossing parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti.
For centuries these communities had mastered strategies to survive such cycles of drought: by reducing livestock to a manageable size at critical moments, and through ingenious pursuit of pasture and water across the arid lands.
Today it’s a different story. Many of the same survival strategies are still used, but politics, war and demographic changes are undermining their ability to see populations safely through the cycles of drought.
The borders of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti carve up the Somali lands and restrict the migration patterns that had historically been essential for pastoralist survival. Since independence, East African states had an inherent mistrust of nomadic peoples who had little interest in being governed by distant capitals rooted in alien languages and traditions. In Ethiopia and Kenya particularly, pastoralist movement was restricted, and they remained largely isolated from development agendas in other parts of the country.
Yet they couldn’t remain isolated from the effects of international agendas, both malign and benevolent in intent. Regional conflict and power games filled the arid lands with small arms, escalating low level disputes into bloodier, more decisive conflicts. Aid agencies flocked in, and unwittingly cultivated new traditions of dependency, propping up unviable lifestyles and engraining emergency aid into the everyday coping mechanisms of pastoralists.