Agago District, located between Pader and Kitgum in northern Uganda, is one of the districts that experienced a dry spell from March to August, destroying harvests and leaving families with nothing to eat.
At Lira-Palwo sub-county and the Agago District headquarters last week, several elderly men and women gathered to receive food relief.
Their teary eyes, pale skin, bony bodies and inability to even sit showed the days some families had endured without a proper meal. Some could not manage to sit and rested on the grass.
The locals had gathered to receive relief aid in form of posho flour, beans and cooking oil from The Salvation Army, a humanitarian organization.
Mr Denish Okot Toolit, a resident of Gemodwong Village, Lapeta Parish, Lira-Palwo Sub-county, also a farmer, said the situation was caused by prolonged drought that destroyed gardens.
"We experienced a prolonged drought where farmers in the first season did not harvest anything from what they had put down. For example, many people eat only once. We are suffering from malnutrition," Toolit said.
He said the current hunger crisis brings back memories of a similar situation in 1994 when Agago was still part of Pader District.
"This is the second similar scenario of hunger crisis we have experienced. We had the same challenge in 1994 where organisations and government came in with food relief to help the people by then when we were still in Pader District," he said.
"When the rains disappoint, our only livelihood which is farming is disorganised and there is no way of paying school fees. We are unable to go to the hospital and now people are dying. Just two weeks ago we buried seven people in Lira-Palwo Sub-county," he added.
Mr John Otto, another resident, blamed the drought on continued tree cutting, cultivation in swamps, use of improved seeds instead of indigenous ones, and low prices of produce.
"People have started cultivating in the swamps because the rains are unpredictable. The government should introduce many irrigation schemes to the farmers if possible in all the 78 parishes," Otto said.
Mr Wilson Otto, the Agago District LC V Chairman, said the district experienced drought for over four months and seeds dried in the gardens.
"We have lost over 18 people due to malnutrition and we had 351 admissions in health centre IIIs and IVs across the district," he said.
He said Love One International, another humanitarian organization, is currently taking care of 307 malnourished children from different homes.
"Records in the hospitals also show that mothers were giving birth to children weighing less than 1 kilogram and these are the serious effects of the drought and hunger," Mr Otto said, adding that organisations and government should come to the rescue of families that have not yet benefited from relief.
He said there are over 4,000 households of older persons who are in urgent need of relief support.
Mr Otto, however, called on locals to embrace farming this second season and said they are devising measures to sustain food production to avoid similar situations.
"As a district, we have learnt a bigger lesson and we want to see that our people grow enough food and have some in stores," he said.
The Monitor has learnt that the district recently passed a council resolution that at least every family should grow cassava, which is a drought resistant long-term crop.
District officials have also started teaching people to plant coffee and bananas.
Officials also revealed that government through the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries has a program of extending irrigation schemes to farmers.
Lieutenant Peter Mukisa Rwolekya, the Public Relations Officer for Salvation Army Uganda Territory, urged other religious groups not to concentrate only on spiritual needs.
"As the Salvation Army we do not end at feeding people spiritually on the word of God but we also give them hope by standing with them without discrimination in belief, tribe and colour. We had a call from the district leaders some weeks ago about the hunger troubling locals due to the prolonged dry spell that was experienced in the area and we decided to respond," Rwolekya said.
Captain Patrick Wanyonyi, the emergency officer in Uganda Territory, said they reached out to 250 households targeting the elderly above 70 years who are at risk.
"We have given each household with an elderly person above 70 years 25 kilograms of maize flour, 10 kilograms of beans and 3 litres of cooking oil and we hope that the items will be able to hold them as we expect other well wishers also come in to rescue the residents of Agago to find what to eat," Wanyonyi said.
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