The wildlife in East Africa is dying of thirst and starvation, the people are suffering - and now the lack of rain threatens even the Serengeti migrations In cracked riverbeds once flowing with water,dozens of hippos lie decomposing in the stifling heat. Elsewhere, the thin delicate frames of rare Grevy's zebras lie on parched grass, felled by anthrax. East Africa should now be preparing for the migration of the wildebeest - the biggest movement of wildlife in the world - but instead, the animals are slowly starving. The people are suffering too. The UN estimates that 11 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Burundi will need food airlifts to survive this drought. Soon, more than one million wildebeest are due to thunder their way through the Mara River, on their Spring migration through the plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania and onto the golden expanse of the Masai Mara in Kenya. Hidden in the dust kicked up by their hooves 200,000 zebras and 300,000 Thomson's gazelles will run alongside. On the fringes there should be an army of predators, waiting to pick off the weakest as they stumble in the vast crowds. But this year, there is nowhere for the animals to go. The Masai Mara, dry at the best of times, is a dustbowl - parched from a season of pitiful rains that has driven many animals out of their natural homes in search of water. The few wild animals that remain are spooked by Masai herdsmen who have driven their cattle into the nature reserves searching for a few patches of grass where their livestock can feed.
In cracked riverbeds once flowing with water,dozens of hippos lie decomposing in the stifling heat. Elsewhere, the thin delicate frames of rare Grevy's zebras lie on parched grass, felled by anthrax.
East Africa should now be preparing for the migration of the wildebeest - the biggest movement of wildlife in the world - but instead, the animals are slowly starving. The people are suffering too. The UN estimates that 11 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Burundi will need food airlifts to survive this drought.
Soon, more than one million wildebeest are due to thunder their way through the Mara River, on their Spring migration through the plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania and onto the golden expanse of the Masai Mara in Kenya.
Hidden in the dust kicked up by their hooves 200,000 zebras and 300,000 Thomson's gazelles will run alongside. On the fringes there should be an army of predators, waiting to pick off the weakest as they stumble in the vast crowds. But this year, there is nowhere for the animals to go.
The Masai Mara, dry at the best of times, is a dustbowl - parched from a season of pitiful rains that has driven many animals out of their natural homes in search of water. The few wild animals that remain are spooked by Masai herdsmen who have driven their cattle into the nature reserves searching for a few patches of grass where their livestock can feed.
And that was last month. And still there is no help on the way. Do the weak always need to suffer and die first?
Droughts are nothing new to Africa, even such harsh ones like these. As always, it's the western culture and consumer life style also adopted in Africa that exacerbates it.
Do the weak always need to suffer and die first?
I know this is a rhetorical question, but the fact is that they don't "need" to, but, being weak, they are the first to feel any strain.
But putting it this way stresses that fact that any good policies should usually care for the weakest as a priority, because if you solve the problem for them (and they don't suffer), chances are that nobody else will face that problem either. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
