Emergency 29

Red Cross efforts continue in response to the ongoing severe drought affecting millions of people in several countries in Africa. These photos depicting water distribution by the Ethiopia Red Cross are provided by Canadian Red Cross communications aid worker Kathy Mueller, who is currently in Ethiopia.

When his mother first brought Munir to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent malnutrition clinic in Al Tal, Rural Damascus, he was so fragile the doctors couldn’t measure him. Munir was five-months-old but weighed just over 2 kilograms – less than his own birth weight. He looked exhausted, worryingly thin, and was unable to sit or hold up his head without his mother’s help.

With severe drought threatening the lives of millions of people in eastern Africa, urgent food assistance will be needed for an estimated 15 million people in the three countries of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya alone. It is considered the worst drought in decades. David Fogden, Canadian Red Cross disaster management delegate, was one of these team members to visit hard-hit areas and saw how the drought has a cascading effect on livelihoods, families and communities.

The signs of hope, strength and recovery are everywhere now when I visit Fort McMurray and the surrounding region in northern Alberta. It’s been slightly more than nine months since wildfires wiped out so much for so many there, and when I talk with people in Wood Buffalo, I still hear their struggles. But increasingly, I also hear more optimism.

The unthinkable happened one day for Sheila Champion and her family. The rest of the country watched in disbelief through various news mediums, as wildfires threatened the city of Fort McMurray. The Champion family, along with approximately 88,000 other residents, were forced from their home, facing the uncertainty of not knowing if they would ever be able to return. 
 

The worst drought in decades threatens to leave tens of millions of people in the region of eastern and southern Africa without enough food. Canadian Red Cross CEO Conrad Sauvé and other Canadian Red Cross representatives were in Ethiopia this week to meet with the Ethiopian Red Cross. 

On January 25, 2017, an ice storm hit New Brunswick, at its height leaving 133,000 people without electricity. When I arrived Feb. 2 in the hardest hit area, the Acadian Peninsula, some 3,500 still were without power.

Doris and her husband live in Pokemouche, New Brunswick. They were without power for 12 days before coming to the Red Cross warming centre in Tracadie-Sheila to find out what could be done. 

When they arrived, Doris and her husband met Red Cross volunteer Michelle Gauthier, who gave them a friendly and comforting welcome.