Crisis watch

Kenya – floods

Since early October, Kenya  has experienced heavy rainfall in many regions leading to flash floods, rock falls, mudslides and landslides. Almost 190,000 people have been affected, including 18,000 who are displaced. Heavy rains are expected to continue across the country over the next few weeks. The rains follow a period of prolonged drought, with 3.1 million people projected to be in crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity since October.

CARE Kenya is planning to carry out a Rapid Gender Assessment to inform programming decisions and ensure the specific needs of women, girls, men and boys are understood and met. The Kenyan Red Cross has been designated as the lead response organisation by the Government of Kenya. CARE Kenya will coordinate with the Red Cross as appropriate to meet the needs of affected communities.

Mozambique – Cyclones Idai and Kenneth

More than half a million people (100,000 households) affected by the cyclones are reportedly still living in destroyed or structurally damaged homes, or sheltering in resettlement sites. Many of these locations are unsafe, inadequately prepared, and lack access to basic goods and services. Meanwhile, Mozambique is experiencing a growing food insecurity emergency, with an estimated 1.7 million people currently facing difficulties in accessing food to meet their basic food needs.

CARE has helped 295,000 people with shelter, education, WASH (water, sanitation, hygience) and food support through our Cyclone Idai response. With funding from the UK public who donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee, we recently completed the construction or rehabilitation of 75 latrines, as well as distributing hygiene kits and conducting hygiene promotions in schools and communities.

Our response to Cyclone Kenneth has helped 37,000 people with WASH, shelter, and food security interventions (including distribution of a seeds and tools package to 2,900 households).

Current and on watch crises

In 2019, 132 million people are estimated to be needing humanitarian assistance across 42 countries. One in every 70 people around the world is caught up in crisis and urgently needs humanitarian assistance and protection. The average humanitarian crisis now lasts more than nine years – an increase from 5.2 years in 2014. (See the United Nations Global Humanitarian Overview 2019)

CARE emergency response overview July to September 2019:

• 42 crises were recorded for this quarter of which 34 crises (80%) are Type 2,3,4 or Protracted.
• CARE helped 7.5 million people (8% of the 94.2 million affected people) in six large-scale crises and three large-scale protracted crises (Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan).
• New emerging crises for the reporting period are food insecurity in Zimbabwe and Zambia; flood emergency in Somalia, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya.
• Significant deterioration in countries with an existing protracted humanitarian crisis: Yemen, Nigeria, South Sudan, North East Syria, Somalia, and Burkina Faso.
• Also on watch are seasonal hazards of cyclone season (Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka), typhoon season (Philippines, Vietnam), and hurricane season (Caribbean and Central America).

Supporting refugees in Turkey

Turkey hosts nearly 3.7 million Syrian registered refugees, accounting for nearly 4.5% of the total resident population in Turkey. CARE has a permanent registration in four provinces in the south-east and we are supporting refugees in Gaziantep, Hatay, Urfa and Kilis provinces. In the period July-September, we helped 65,000 people (50% of them women and girls).

The rapid expansion of refugee communities in Turkey – the largest influx of refugees in the world – has created challenges for integration and social cohesion; in the worst cases, these dynamics have led to open tensions. In response, CARE Turkey works to reduce social tensions between Syrian refugees and host communities, aiming to promote values such as belonging, participation, equal opportunities, and recognition.

Malawi – Cyclone Idai update

Most people affected by the cyclone and associated flooding have returned to their communities and original homes where they have rebuilt houses either on the same affected lands, or they have relocated to newly identified lands. There are still needs for some basic household items, agricultural inputs, and food. Access to water is an issue in some of the relocation areas, and 
gender-based Violence is still a concern. Because of limited water supply in villages, women and girls report staying out late and getting up very early in the morning to obtain water, putting them at risk of gender-based violence.

CARE has helped 273,000 people through food distribution in Nsanje (76,000), borehole rehabilitation outside of Nsanje (117,000), agricultural inputs in Phalombe (13,000), and people in Chikwawa through shelter, water/sanitation/hygiene support, food security and agriculture recovery (67,000). CARE consulted participants through a number of assessments, and continued to do so as the situation changed. We have been undertaking post-distribution monitoring exercises to ascertain people’s satisfaction with various components of the response. We also plan to conduct another gender analysis looking at how gender issues have changed during the recovery phase.