The U.S. Agency for International Development has deployed a disaster response team to Ethiopia, where there is a “crucial window of time” to avert the worst impacts of a drought, according to the agency’s disaster chief. The disaster assistance response team — or DART — traveled to Ethiopia on March 3.
El Nino-induced weather extremes are wreaking havoc on livelihoods, food and water systems across Ethiopia. While the situation has yet to escalate into a full-blown famine, the current drought is considered worse than that which contributed to the devastating 1984 Ethiopian famine, which — together with human rights abuses — killed roughly half a million people.
USAID’s DART teams are better known for mobilizing in the wake of a catastrophic event — dropping into Nepal’s post-earthquake rubble, for example, or scrambling to save lives in the aftermath of a typhoon.