Emergency response
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Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps
Life can change for millions of families in an instant: natural disasters can take loved ones and the outbreak of war drive families from their homes. When the unthinkable happens, Mercy Corps delivers rapid, lifesaving aid to hard-hit communities.
All stories about Emergency response
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Libya: Youth on the frontlines October 12, 2011
Young people here in Libya are looking to promote positive change and have been significant in Mercy Corps' efforts.
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Ethiopia: Bigger harvests, safer food October 10, 2011
I’m writing from under my mosquito net in Jijiga, Ethiopia. If you don’t know where that is, don’t feel bad. I didn’t either. I looked it up before I left home, of course, but Google maps only showed a big empty expanse that I suppose is meant to indicate sand.
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Kenya: Cash grant, food provide relief to family October 10, 2011
I met Sangaba Abdi Gullet at Barmil during our cash distribution activities. She looked more distressed than the rest of the beneficiaries. From her face, we could tell she’d been through very tough times.
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Kenya: Drought pushing food prices up October 6, 2011
Here's an example of how prices have skyrocketed in Kenya because of the drought. The conversion rate is simple: 100 Kenyan shilling equals a dollar.
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Kenya: 'Our camels are so weak, we have to help them stand up' October 4, 2011
Chief Saladi Ibrahim shakes my hand and manages a smile. As we sit down in the hut, he pauses to gather his thoughts. He is clearly troubled. He’s been chief for 17 years, and his village of Dela, like the rest of Wajir County, is in a terrible time.
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Kenya: Pressing for time October 3, 2011
All day long, as the heat swelled to a punishing bake, gray clouds teased a promise of rain. But no rain came. In Wajir town and the surrounding scrub the landscape is parched: red sand, broken branches, piles of white rocks.
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Pakistan: Filtering water in the flood zone October 2, 2011
We've started to supply clean drinking water to tankers being run by the municipal authorities and local humanitarian organisations in Badin, home to some of the worst flooding in a crisis that has displaced 1.8 million people in Pakistan.
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Somalia: Families still fleeing to Mogadishu seeking food September 27, 2011
Our staff in Mogadishu registered 25 newly arrived households families who had walked for more than three weeks to reach Mogadishu, with the hope that they will get something to eat and live on.
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Pakistan: Rains slow, but urgent needs remain September 26, 2011
The rains have mostly stopped for the past week, and we can see some slight decrease in the level of water where we're working — but that's relative. In far too many places, the view is one of a vast lake or river, where there should be none.
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Kenya: Death and drought September 22, 2011
Today the Mercy Corps Emergency Response Team headed to El-Adow in northeast Kenya, to begin our work to give cash grants to those hardest hit by the drought. As we approached the small town, the carcasses of dead livestock lay scattered all across the dust, as far as the horizon.