Food crisis: Katine residents still suffering from shortages

The rains have come in Katine, but it is too soon for the most vulnerable groups – women, children or the elderly – to breathe a sigh of relief

At 80, Rupina Angicho and her 74-year-old husband, David Obwol, who live in Merok parish, Katine, have well exceeded Uganda’s life expectancy, which is below 50.

The couple, who live in Agora village, say they had never thought about death until the recent drought that has hit this region of north-east Uganda, wiped out this year’s harvest, destroying crops such as cassava, groundnuts, sorghum and millet.

"We are very old and sickly now, because we do not have enough food to survive on," says Obwol. All the crops cultivated by his two sons, who now look after the couple, have been destroyed by the drought.

"We are now just surviving by chance," Angicho adds.

Obwol says while he was able to survive the 2007 floods that ravaged the region leaving several families homeless, he is not sure whether he would be able to get through the current situation.

The couple can recall receiving food rations from government in 2007 to help them get through the disaster, and are critical that similar action has not been taken now. "Last time they [the government] helped us, but now they have refused. Do they want us to die," says Angicho.

Source: Guardian

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