The drought is scourging northern Kenya well ahead of the dry season and is increasing the problems for the Turkana and Samburu areas.
The dangerous situation of a lack of water has long had an impact on agriculture and consequently on food supply, both for humans and animals within the counties of Marsabit, Turkana, Isiolo and Samburu.
Usually a situation like this occurs every five or six years, but lately it is becoming a habitual and prolonged situation.
What the government has also declared a national emergency cannot be solved by solidarity and impromptu initiatives alone. Water transport by road tankers cannot meet local needs and, above all, cannot reach the entire population.
The area most affected by the drought is Sololo, where the NGO Cipad, coordinated by the doctor-mandate Pino Bollini, operates: there are only two small active dams, Ramata and Yashare, but the water is not much and can not last long.
Especially since three weeks the water is very dirty and greenish, and exponentially increase the risk of dysentery, cholera and other diseases related to infected water.
Some NGOs and the World Vision programme from the refugee camp to the Ethiopian border are bringing water from its tanks to the nearest villages, while Marsabit County and the Government have started to supply drinking water to almost all the large villages, alternately.
Families, even large ones, cannot be guaranteed more than sixty litres of water a day.
The semi-nomadic populations of shepherds move every day several kilometres from their settlements in search of wells and other sources of water for themselves and for their herds.