Hunger and poverty strikes Iganga, families depend on raw mangoes for survival
A family of seven people in Bukyaye village, Nakalama sub county in Iganga district survives on half a kilogramme of posho daily.
URN visited the family of Ajira Naigaga on Tuesday at around 7pm. Normally in most homesteads, this is the time to prepare the day's supper.
But for Naigaga, it was a different story. There was no activity in her kitchen and three of her children aged between four and 10 were feeding on raw mangoes in the yard. Her ailing father was asleep in the yard too.
She says that she waits until 9pm to serve supper to help the children sleep with something in the stomach since they never have lunch meals. She says she was lucky as her neighbour gave her three egg plants to accompany the posho.
She adds that since her husband abandoned the family, she leaves home at 8am, moves from house to house looking for someone to offer her a job such as washing clothes. She notes that in most cases she never gets any because people have no money.
Naigaga notes that her family has been having this one meal and at times none at all since October this year when her crop yields including potatoes, beans and maize dried up. She says that the pain she feels looking at her children starving is difficult to bear. Her husband abandoned her early this month after failing to afford the meal daily.
Naigaga is not alone. In the same village, URN visited another homestead which had the same problem. Kaudah Edinansi, a mother of four says she and her children survive on raw mangoes for lunch. She says that she lost all her yields to drought.
Her husband Bagala Patrick, a boda boda cyclist in Nakalama town has to buy half a kilogramme of maize meal or posho every evening for supper. But Edinansi says that in most cases he cannot afford to buy it so they sleep on empty stomachs.
Her second last born looks visibly malnourished and that doctors recommended foods such as milk, eggs, proteins among others to help the three-year-old baby to recover.
Dr. Kiwanuka Paul, the Iganga District Health Officer-DHO, says that the rate of malnutrition is worsening in most rural areas. He says the numbers have increased since August this year, adding that Iganga hospital alone receives up to 20 malnourished children everyday.
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warns that Uganda and several countries in Sub Saharan Africa face acute hunger in the coming months due to failed harvest and stunted crops.
The organisation says more than 60 million people worldwide, about 40 million in East and Southern Africa alone, are projected to face hunger due to the impact of the El Nino and La Nina, a phenomenon which can cause heavy rains in some parts of the globe and drought elsewhere.