'Don't give us dog food!'
2006-01-31 20:32
Nairobi - Officials in drought-stricken Kenya reacted with horror and outrage on Tuesday to a plan by a New Zealand woman to send dog food to feed starving children threatened by famine in the East African nation.
Describing the idea as "absurd," "insulting," "offensive" and "immoral," Kenyan officials vehemently rejected the donation and said they would put measures in place to prevent any similar assistance.
The would-be donor, Christine Drummond, has told the New Zealand press her mix is different from pet food, but made with the same ingredients, and she and her children eat it.
"It is immoral, it is unacceptable," said special programmes minister John Munyes, who is co-ordinating the government's response to the drought that has put up to four million Kenyans at risk of starvation.
"I am very much offended, it is in bad taste," he told AFP. "It is unacceptable and we should not even be discussing such a demeaning thing."
"Oh no, it is horrible, it is terrible," said Khadija Abdalla, head of the Garrisa Provincial Hospital in one of the worst-hit areas of northeast Kenya where at least 40 people have died since December of drought-related cases.
"It is insulting us because we are poor," she told AFP.
"We appreciate when people are willing to help us, but they should be sensitive about our culture," said government spokesperson Alfred Mutua.
"Telling us that you are giving us food for dogs in our culture is an insult of the highest order," he told AFP. "Maybe, she was trying to help, but I hope this offer is a result of naivety."
The outcry began when Nairobi's leading Daily Nation picked up a report about the offer of 6 000 packets of powdered dog food from The Press newspaper in Christchurch, New Zealand and splashed it across its front page.
Under the headline "For starving children of Kenya, 42 tons of dog food ..." the Nation heaped scorn on the scheme presented to the New Zealand paper by Drummond, the founder of Mighty Mix dog food.
Drummond said the relief, NZ's Raw Dry Nourish, is fit for humans. Both she and her children used it, but she allowed it is made from the same ingredients as her Mighty Mix dog biscuits.
She told the paper she had initially thought of sending biscuits to Kenya but decided against it when she discovered how many Kenyan children were in need.
"The first plan was to send dog biscuits and change the vitamins then when I heard there were so many little children I could not send them a bicky," The Press quoted her as saying.