Our Projects - Refugee Assistance

Support To Eritrean Refugees in the Afar Region

Project Rationale

The current condition of Eritrean refugees in Afar Region, Ethiopia remains neglected in terms of providing them with the necessary and adequate basic supplies, in particular food. A combination of swelling refugee numbers and unstable/minimal food rations from the WFP have together compromised the situation.

 

In the past 2 months, some 360 households have crossed in from Eritrea reaching Buure in the far north of Eli Daar. This is their first point of contact with the authorities and with help. All of those newcomers have been destitute and in poor to severe status of malnutrition. Due to irregular (very recently, refugees did not receive 2 months food ration) and inadequate food supplies in the camp/settlement areas, all these people can be described as hungry: some of them with identified moderate to severe acute malnutrition.

 

In the Aysaita refugee camp 3,110 people are registered. There are no more than 30 goats. These refugees are living on a UNHCR ration of ½ liter of oil and 15 kilograms of wheat grain per month. This ration leaves them without protein or adequate calories.

 

Project Goal: Provide supplementary food assistance to ease the now critical problem of malnutrition in the UNHCR refugee/displaced people’s camps in Buure and Aysaita, Afar Region.

 

Project Implementation:

APDA health workers have conducted assessments with both these communities and identified those in need of treatment for severe acute malnutrition and those who are moderately malnourished. Those in the former category are reported to UNICEF and the State Bureau of Health. They are then supplied with a specially prepared and measured food, ‘plumpy nut’, that is given as a prescription according to body weight. There are now 212 people in the critical condition of severe acute malnutrition, an estimated 300 pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers, moderately malnourished people as well as others identified with malnutrition.

 

The project will purchase 2,500 kilograms of lentils and provide each of the 333 moderately malnourished refugees with 7.5 kilograms for 1 month and 15 days. A further 16 children under 1 year old are identified as in critical nutrition state as their mothers have no breast milk and they are unable to be assisted on lentils. The project will purchase 3 tins of powdered milk for each of these children. This is expected to last them 3 months per child.

Project Photo Gallery (click to enlarge)