The road to Kori was long and arduous. It still astounds me how these communities would have arrived at a place so remote and grim, where water supplies are far away if at all available, where the land barely serves to sustain any form of life.

They are a pastoralist community who has lived in this region for over a thousand years, moving within a 200km radius. They rely on the weather for their livelihood and survival. This year they expected rain between Feb and April which would have served as their water source but that has not happened.

The Egyptian Pharaohs ruled this part of the world a long time ago, as evident in their clothing style and hairstyles.

It was said that the Kori people are a tough tribe and used to fightoff the Tigrayans when they came to loot. However regardless of the resilience of these people, there is a clear breaking point when food and water supplies are scarce and this is only getting worse. For most communities in Ethiopia, livestock forms an extremely important part of survival. Here in the Kori woreda, livestock carcasses were found scattered throughout the grounds. Carcasses of camels were also evident which says a hell of a lot. The remaining livestock were extremely thin and hence fetched a much reduced market price due to drastically reduced weight. Watering holes for livestock have all dried up. Due to land being carved up based on clan/tribes, the alternatives were even grimmer.