By Fraol Bersissa @FiraolBer
Addis Abeba: The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) has written a letter on 06 August 2022 to relief organizations working in Ethiopia to take account of and respond to the drought, which it says is devastating the Eastern and Southern sections of the Oromia region. The letter identified eight zones of Oromia, namely East Bale, Guji, West Guji, West Hararge, East Hararge, Arsi, West Arsi, and Borena, whereby it was said that an exacerbating drought was consuming lives.
The opposition party blamed federal and regional authorities for neglecting and repudiating the existence of the drought situation and attributed the deteriorating security context to exposing more zones of the region to the befalls of the drought. OFC distressingly reminded its addresses that unless local and international intervention is engineered in the fastest possible manner, drought-impacted communities were helpless and consequently left to die of hunger.
Finally, two calls were made out to the international relief providers and the federal government of Ethiopia (FGoE) to respond accordingly. Firstly, it urged international relief to apply effort at an expedited pace to react to the drought, secondly, the party stressed that the FGoE must recognize the drought’s existence and deploy its capabilities in collaboration with the forenamed international partners to alleviate the dilemma in concern.
Drought spreading in the Oromia regional state has been of concern to entities, besides political parties mobilizing there, including the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission which assessed 11 kebeles and emphasized, requesting the FGoE to take action in cooperation with international relief mechanizations. Addis Standard had recently reported that at least 12 people died in the Guji zone, one of the eight impacted zones, as a result of hunger. The drought, which has been called one of the worst in decades, is adversely affecting food and water shortages in multiple regions of Ethiopia, including Oromia, Somali, SNNP, and the newly formed South West Ethiopia People’s region, with relief organizations earmarking 16.99 million people for mitigating, according to recent estimates. AS
