Djibouti reeling from several years of drought

Lisa Schlein in Voice of America: The United Nations has launched a two-year, multi-million-dollar appeal to help one-quarter-million people in the tiny East African country of Djibouti recover from several years of persistent, recurring drought. The U.N. seeks $74 million for 2014 to break out of the country’s ongoing cycle of crises.

Two weeks ago, two Somali suicide bombers blew themselves up along with a Turkish man in a café frequented by foreigners in Djibouti’s capital city. The international media devoted little coverage to the story, underlining how overlooked and neglected this tiny country in the Horn of Africa is by the rest of the world.

This is a major problem for nearly one-quarter of Djibouti’s population of 850,000 - some 250,000 people who are seriously affected by more than four years of consecutive drought.

U.N. Resident Coordinator in Djibouti Robert Watkins is in Geneva to get international donors to pay attention to their plight and to support plans to help them emerge from this crisis.

He says malnutrition rates have increased to 18 percent, which exceeds the emergency threshold of 15 percent. In some areas, he says malnutrition is as high as 26 percent and the rate of chronic malnutrition is 30 percent.  In addition, he says 60 percent of the rural population is suffering from malaria and diarrheal diseases...