The people affected by the drought are farmers in the highlands and pastoralists in the Afar and Somali regions. Three years of drought has led to a severe lack of feed and water for livestock in the southern pastoral areas, where now there are famine conditions. Out of the eight million affected, seven million are in the highlands, a million of them in Tigray. A lot of people simply do not have enough to eat, even though Tigray is a crop-producing area. There is local out-migration, signs of malnutrition.
Students drop out of school to leave the village and try to find work.
We are now in the pre-famine stage in Tigray. This could have been prevented with a fast adequate relief response. Because of our effective distribution strategy we are able to reach the most needy, and have prevented a scenario of massive deaths as in '84-'85. The rain was late in most of the country. We expected it in early May, but it came toward the end of June, beginning of July.