In northeastern Kenya, the drought has reached a desperate tipping point. Villagers in Mandera County, bordering Ethiopia and Somalia, are now forced to drag the carcasses of dead livestock to distant fields for burning, trying to keep the stench and scavenging hyenas away from their homes.
“I have lost all my cows and goats, and burned them here,” said 60-year-old Bishar Maalim Mohammed from Tawakal village. In communities where pastoralism is the lifeblood, the loss of animals has left families vulnerable and desperate. One lone bull in his village can no longer stand, lying dehydrated for nearly a week, bones protruding through its skin, as its owner watches helplessly.
Nearby in Banissa, a once-ample man-made watering hole that held 60,000 cubic metres of water is now dry. Children play on the cracked, barren ground where livestock once drank. Herds of goats, cattle, and camels now trek up to 30 kilometres to the nearest watering hole at Lulis village, jostling for the rationed water. “In two weeks this water will be finished… we are in a very bad state,” said local resident Aden Hussein.
The crisis goes beyond livestock. More than two million people across 23 counties are facing worsening food insecurity after the October–December short rains failed, with rainfall two-thirds below average. Mandera County has been placed in the “alarm” phase by the National Drought Management Authority, just one step short of an official emergency. Across the region, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network warns that 20 to 25 million people in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia require humanitarian food assistance, with over half affected by drought.
“Our children are the next ones who are going to die,” said Maalim Mohammed, reflecting the fear shared by countless families. At Banissa’s main hospital, the pediatric ward is overwhelmed with severely malnourished children, including some arriving from Ethiopia. Among them, a 32-month-old girl weighed only 4.5 kilograms, while another child returned after being discharged into a household with no food. “Children are not getting an adequate diet because of this drought…they depend on camel and goat milk, but there is now no milk at all,” said hospital nutritionist Khalid Ahmed Wethow. The facility, serving around 200,000 people, has just eight tins of therapeutic milk remaining, expected to run out within days.
Aid has struggled to fill the gap. Donations from organizations like the World Food Programme have been scarce, as Western countries cut aid budgets over the past year. The Kenyan government and groups such as the Red Cross have intensified water-trucking efforts, food distribution, and cash assistance, but the scale of the crisis far outpaces their resources.
In a desperate bid for survival, another villager, Bishar Mohamed of Hawara village, traveled more than 150 kilometres with his 170 goats in search of pasture. By the time he returned home, nearly all had died. “We have tried to escape in search of better places and failed,” he said, standing amid the piles of carcasses. “I have been moving on foot… my head is severely in pain… we are thirsty.”
The drought is also disrupting education. At a school in Jabi Bar village, enrollment has dropped by more than half, with most children leaving to accompany their families. The next rains, if they come, are not expected before April.
For families like Bishara Maalim’s, hope now rests on survival and divine mercy. “May God save our children,” she said, looking toward the uncertain future
