Uganda has launched emergency food relief distribution after at least 19 deaths from hunger were reported in an area of prolonged drought in the east of the country.
A crisis has been building in the Karamoja region of Uganda as crops have failed without the season’s expected rains, leaving the region’s 1.5 million people facing acute food shortages and rising malnutrition.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net), a global mapping network designed to raise the alert on food security, reported the situation had deteriorated to a crisis across Karamoja.
In the first large-scale operation of its kind organised by the Ugandan government after the funding void left by aid cuts, authorities announced plans to distribute 9,400 tonnes of relief food over the next two months. The supplies were procured using a 45bn-shilling (£9m) emergency funding allocation, approved by parliament.
Sam Engola, minister for disaster preparedness and refugees, launched the aid distribution efforts at a primary school in Lodiko sub-county in Kaabong district on Wednesday.
“The president does not want to hear of anyone in Karamoja dying of hunger. I am here to supervise the distribution of this food to the end. I will ensure that everyone receives food. No one will be left behind,” Engola said.
Karamoja is experiencing its most severe dry spell in years. Farmers have lost crops since the last meaningful rainfall was recorded in April – the beginning of the planting season.
Angelina Nakiru, a 21-year-old mother of two in Rupa, about 5 miles from Moroto town in Karamoja, said she was struggling to feed her children after all her crops failed. Now she goes early each morning to join other women at a small-scale grinding mill where machines are used to crush rock into powder to wash out gold-bearing ore. The pay is meagre.
“The work is dusty and exhausting, but it is the only way I can earn money to buy a cup of maize and beans to feed the children,” Nakiru said.
“If I don’t, the children will sleep hungry. Other days when I fail to get the meagre income from the mill, we go to bed on empty stomachs,” she said.
“The situation is terrible. People are starving and dying due to hunger. The government must come to the rescue of the people.”
Health facilities report treating hundreds of children for severe malnutrition. A nutrition report published in June found nearly half of the population in Karamoja’s Kaabong and Kotido districts in a crisis situation.
Experts attribute the region’s recurring food insecurity and vulnerability to climate crisis shocks, environmental degradation such as deforestation and overgrazing, as well as poverty and low agricultural productivity.
In 2022, a devastating hunger crisis claimed more than 2,200 lives, according to figures from Uganda’s human rights commission body.
While emergency food aid is expected to provide short-term relief, the government said it remained committed to implementing long-term remedial measures with the recently approved Karamoja regional development plan, which is intended to strengthen communities’ resilience to drought.
John Baptist Lokii, minister for Karamoja, said: “The government will provide drought-resistant, disease-resistant and early-maturing seeds ahead of the next planting season.”
Agnes Kirabo, executive director of Uganda’s Food Rights Alliance (FRA), said the government was taking the lead on distribution as a necessity as much as a policy choice as the landscape of humanitarian aid had changed dramatically.
Following significant funding cuts, most notably from USAID, which previously had an annual budget of about $42.8bn (£32.bn), agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP) have been forced to drastically scale back their aid.
In Uganda, the WFP has phased out food assistance for 63% of the refugee population, cutting off more than 1 million people from aid, and reducing rations to just 663,000 recipients.
“This transition should not be viewed solely as a reaction to aid cuts, but also as a positive shift towards nationally owned, sustainable development. Government leadership is a constructive move, provided it is part of a long-term strategy to establish durable national systems,” said Kirabo.
“Emergency food distribution is a life-saving measure, not a permanent solution. To break this cycle, we must address the root causes of food insecurity through structural reforms.”
The FRA, Kirabo said, wanted access to food to be made a fundamental human right and the government to turn its attention to water infrastructure and climate resilience. “Karamoja possesses adequate rainfall and water routes to achieve food self-sufficiency, but requires the political will to strategically invest in water infrastructure for production,” she said.
“Ultimately, the Karamoja hunger crisis is a governance crisis. The government’s leadership in this emergency is welcome, but it must be matched by the political will to implement the systemic changes required to permanently protect the people of Karamoja and Uganda from predictable, preventable hunger.”
