The rains didn’t just fail this year; they forgot how to come back.
In northern Kenya, cracked riverbeds now serve as roads. In Somalia, wells that once fed entire villages are dry. Across the Horn of Africa, an extended dry spell is tightening its grip, pushing millions closer to hunger and displacement.
Early warning systems from the FAO and WFP show escalating alerts across Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and parts of Eritrea, where over 25 million people face acute food insecurity. Pastoralist communities, already battered by years of erratic weather, are losing not just their livestock, but their lives.
Meteorologists say the region has endured five failed rainy seasons in seven years — a pattern once described as rare, now disturbingly routine.
“We’re not dealing with a drought cycle anymore,” said Dominique Burgeon, FAO’s Regional Director for Eastern Africa. “We’re dealing with a climate shift that’s outpacing every adaptation plan we’ve made.”
In northern Kenya’s Turkana County, 46-year-old herder Lemukol Ekal gestures toward his parched grazing lands. “We used to count our cows,” he says softly. “Now we count the ones we’ve buried.”
Families walk dozens of kilometers to search for water and pasture, often clashing with neighboring communities over shrinking resources. Aid agencies warn of rising malnutrition rates among children under five, especially in border zones where conflict complicates relief access.
In Ethiopia’s Somali region, water trucking has become a lifeline. But even that, locals say, is temporary. “You can’t truck rain,” says Amina Abdullahi, a mother of four. “You pray for it, and then you wait.”
According to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction Centre, soil moisture levels in the Horn are at their lowest since 1981.
Satellite data shows that the vegetation density across northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia is down by 40% since January, a clear marker of the drought’s reach.
Governments are responding with emergency funds and food aid, but analysts warn that short-term relief won’t fix long-term vulnerability.
“Without investment in water harvesting and drought-resilient crops, we’ll repeat this crisis every two years,” said Dr. Tesfaye Asfaw, Ethiopia’s Agriculture Minister.
What began as a local rainfall failure now threatens regional stability. Food prices have surged, livestock markets have collapsed, and migration corridors are swelling. Humanitarian agencies say the next three months will determine whether the crisis becomes a famine, or a warning finally heeded.
Across the Horn, communities are improvising survival strategies: shared grazing pacts, mobile boreholes, and community-led feed banks. But every adaptation feels like a stopgap against a storm that never arrives.
Forecasts hint at another below-average short-rain season in late 2025. If that happens, experts fear irreversible loss in soil fertility and herder income.
“The drought didn’t start this year, and it won’t end with this season,” said a WFP regional coordinator. “It’s no longer about surviving the weather. It’s about reengineering the system.”
TN Africa Take
Drought isn’t a year’s problem; it’s a system’s failure.
The Horn of Africa is living through a warning the world keeps ignoring: climate change doesn’t wait for summits or funding rounds. It rewrites the rules of survival every day.
Relief alone won’t fix it. Resilience must. Because if Africa doesn’t build drought resistance into its economies, no amount of rainfall will ever be enough.