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                                     Ethiopia's worst famine in 20 years

Charities say 20m people may need food aid to survive, as measles and malaria sweep countryside

John Vidal in Addis Ababa
Friday April 18, 2003
The Guardian

These should be reasonably good times for Tadese Konta in the lowlands of southern Ethiopia. The spring rains should have come two months ago, her young husband should be out ploughing and planting their small plot of land, food aid should have arrived, and their cow ought to be giving them a small income.
Instead, Tadese sits with 14 other women cradling her severely malnourished son in a small room in the clinic at Damot Wayde, not knowing whether her family will ever recover from the longest drought anyone has known.

Last week her animal died, the rains had still not come, and because her name is not on the village list for food distribution, she and her three children have eaten next to nothing for months.

She has sold all she can, borrowed from her neighbours and now, fatalistically, she says that she is waiting for God or the government to help.

Neither are in evidence in Damot Wayde.

Nightmare scenario

The largest emergency food aid programme in the world is in top gear, shipping tens of thousands of tonnes of mainly US grain to Ethiopia each month, but it is proving pitifully inadequate for what are thought to be millions of people in Tadese's situation.

Ethiopia, in the grip of drought, needs far more food than expected only three months ago.

Because of a sixth poor rainy season in three years, the authorities and western charities overseeing food distribution are beginning to accept that 20 million people - not 13 million as originally thought - may now need help at least until the end of the year to avoid destitution and starvation.

"The situation is deteriorating rapidly and the government's nightmare scenario is coming true," said Carol Morgan, the head of Concern Ethiopia, one of the largest western charities in the country.

"Despite food getting in, malnourishment is growing alarmingly in some areas. This is now worse than the 1984 famine, when only 10 million people needed food. The need is far greater."

A new nutrition assessment carried out by Concern in Damot Wayde county found growing gaps emerging between people's needs and the assistance they were receiving.

Pre-harvest estimates by the government, the UN and charities in October suggested 22% of the county's population of 200,000 people would need food aid this year, but this has now been revised to more than 30%, with more than 10% of people found to be already acutely malnourished.

On top of that, the report found that many people who were in real need were ineligible for food aid, and the targeting of the most vulnerable by the government was poor.

The report also found that measles and malaria outbreaks had further weakened the population, and they are now affecting up to 60% of people in some areas. Cattle have been found to be dying in large numbers, and food and grain prices have increased dramatically.

Other aid agencies distributing food in Ethiopia this week reported similar situations.

The problem is said by charities to be particularly bad in Ethiopia's remote southern provinces.

In Arusi Wayde, a small lowland village, farmers said that one in three people were now malnourished and that families were sharing their food aid because there was not nearly enough to go around.

"Most of us have just enough to stay alive, but others are not eligible for food," said one of the elders in the village.

"More than 400 cattle have died in the past two weeks in this area alone. We depend on them for everything, but we estimate one in seven of our goats, sheep, cows and donkeys have already died and the rest are too weak to plough."

"The situation is grave and worsening," said Tilaye Taswe, the head of the nearby health centre which has been overrun by the hungry.

"Every month more and more people are coming to the health centre with malnourished children.

"If the drought continues we can expect many deaths in the next few months. The situation is grave. There are many more people in the villages who need treatment, but we only have two rooms and cannot take more. Even with food aid, at least 10% of people are malnourished. Without it, perhaps 40% of people would be in a very serious situation."

Twin emergencies

Aid agencies are increasingly concerned that western countries will ignore Ethiopia in the rush to provide food for Iraq.

Only 54% of the 2m tonnes of food thought to have been needed to feed the country three months ago has so far been pledged, and while supplies are guaranteed for the next six weeks, there are uncertainties about whether the world can cope with two of the largest food emergencies known in the past 50 years.

Earlier this week the World Food Programme said that 40 million people in Africa needed food aid.

"In a normal year the food distribution system works well, but it is becoming overstretched," said Ms Morgan. "Ethiopia just does not have the resources to distribute the food quickly enough."

· Crossing the continent

People seen as under threat of famine in Africa:

Ethiopia 20 million

Zimbabwe 7 million

Malawi 3.2 million

Sudan 2.9 million

Zambia 2.7 million

Angola 1.9 million

Eritrea 1 million

Against all odds

Drought ridden Ethiopia struggles to head off a massive famine
Reporter: Brian Stewart | Producer: Carmen Merrifield
Camera: Brian Kelly | Editor: Sheldon Beldick
February 12, 2002

It's the gravest crisis Ethiopia has ever faced. Twelve million people need food aid. But this isn't the great famine of 1984 again. As they pray for rain, Ethiopians are also mobilizing a grassroots movement to beat the famine.

Find out more about aid organizations in Ethiopia

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As we arrive by plane, below me, again, is the wide path of another drought. I've never seen it worse over northern Ethiopia, the "high roof of Africa" of sun-blasted mountains and cracked riverbeds.

In 1984, drought became a megafamine that killed a million people, and I'm returning to the epicentre of that suffering – Tigray. It's not the only place now at risk, but Tigray is the one I know best.

So remote, so mesmerizing – a national poet writes: "It is the dark side of the moon, brought to light."

But after some years of decent harvests, rains have failed, crops died. Some of the poorest people on Earth are left with virtually nothing.

Why Ethiopia again? Mostly because of sheer poverty. Ninety per cent are bare subsistence farmers. In past droughts they've had to sell off all they own. Now 11 million, 15 per cent of the nation, are too destitute to make it without help.

Simply put, food aid must rumble up these isolated roads for a year or the death toll will again be immense.

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"The need is enormous. If the response is very low, things will be very bad, extremely bad. We will see people dying."

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There are no illusions here. Everyone knows the coming months will be terrible. The drought is fierce. There are five million more people at risk of famine than in 1984 and the general health and poverty of the people is even worse to begin with. Ethiopia's back is truly to the wall.

Still, what's surprising, astonishing really, is one feels little sense of panic or defeatism. Instead there's a national mobilization for an all-out do-or-die struggle against famine and even the conviction that with outside help there is the will, the organization and the sheer toughness to win out.

Ethiopia is a unique country with some core strengths in any crisis. Never really colonized, it is fiercely proud and profoundly religious, the second oldest Christian country on Earth. This gives areas like Tigray a strong sense of social cohesion that is so striking to foreign aid workers like John Graham of Save the Children.

John Graham
"That gives a moral basis for society and a great strength to the family as well," says Graham. "And I worked in southern Africa for a long time as well and there… what was clearly visible was generational breakdown, that the families were in a state of tension and often collapse; whereas here, you come here, and you see very strong families, very strong moral values. Ethiopia, for example, is an incredibly poor place (but) there's incredibly little crime."

Now both the dominant Christian Orthodox Church and Muslim leaders have united to call for national sharing. All also promise to help those in need. And Ethiopians are renowned for sharing whatever they have with extended families, and poor neighbours. That's a critical start.

Having worked on emergencies in Africa since the '84 famine, Graham says Ethiopians quickly mobilize to help others.

"It's much different from any other African country I've ever been in," he says. "When there is a crisis here, people begin to donate part of their salaries. You'll have entire departments or organizations where they'll get together and say we're going to give you 50 per cent of our monthly salary against this drought."

Responce is quick. Across the north, there's a sharp rise in malnutrition cases showing up at clinics. Fortunately, this is part of an efficient famine early warning system. Past governments tried to hide famines, now clinics quickly report when the average weight of children begins to drop.

Other early warnings are field reports by The Relief Society of Tigray called REST. Dought and food shortages are checked daily by travelling experts like Tsegae Assessa.

CBC's Brian Stewart: "What's frightening, I'm finding as we've been driving around for days now and everywhere it seems the same."

Tsegae Assessa
Tsegae Assessa: "In my experience, the drought is so bad that it resembles or it is equal to the '84-85 situation except that the response mechanism is good now. The drought itself is equivalent to that of '85-85. People have got just nothing."

CBC's Brian Stewart: "Well, you can get the food out there. You're organized to do that. But what is going to happen if the world doesn't respond? What then?"

Tsegae Assessa: "The need is enormous. If the response is very low, things will be very bad, extremely bad. We will see people dying. We will see people moving here and there. We will see a lot of beggars in the cities. The rural population will flood into the cities just for the search of anything."

The 1984 famine killed a million people
The memory of the 1984 famine migrations haunts Ethiopia. It is exactly what Ethiopia must now prevent – the mass movement of the starving to overcrowded food aid camps.

Many people, too famished, simply died on the way. Others succumbed to diseases in the squalid camps. Tens of thousands who were forced down to the unfamiliar tropic south died of malaria.

In Ethiopia, mass movement equals mass death. So today the critical need is to keep the hungry where they are, listen to them, find out their needs, bring food before panic movement sets it.

Another part of the early warning system, is the gathering of people, many who are close to the edge, at a feed centre.

Old man: "We cannot get anything from the land now. (In) 1984 we were able to get a little so it is difficult now."

CBC's Brian Stewart: "So it is even worse than it was in 1984?"

Old man: "Yes, it is worse than the 1984-85 (famine) because we cannot get any crop or anything. So, yes, it is very bad."

Woman: "During 1984, we left our land and our home. We even buried our children in Mekelle. We were forced to leave our village and migrate to Mekelle. Now we are here. Even under difficult times we have not left our house. We are here with all the troubles."

Ethipians hate having to ask for food. A big problem is many won't ask until they're too weak to go on. They're now encouraged to take some aid before it's too late.

CBC's Brian Stewart: "So what are you trying to do to prevent the kind of scenes we saw in 1984-85, where a whole countryside had to get up and walk to a big refugee camp?"

Tsegae Assessa: "The policy… is that the food should go to the people, not people to travel in search of food. We have a very bad experience in '84-85. We were forced to take people to Sudan just simply to feed… to give the same distribution as this is now. But now we had enough experience of it and we have to bring the food to the people rather than people should travel to the food."

Rest officials like Tsegae have astonishing experience. As a rebel against the Marxist dictatorship in 1984 famine, Tsegae ran emergency food supply lines into Tigray, often under government fire.

Many like him in REST maintain deep grassroots connections to the people.

"When you work with the people, they tell you their needs and you have to (base) yourself from the needs of the people," he says. "If you go on your own, you may not satisfy the needs of the people. So that's why REST works with the people and gets all the information that the people need."

Another key advantage now is that the long period of civil war and conflict with Eritrea have finally ended, and the many years of shared hardship have formed self-help bonds in Tigray.

You see it clearly in the crisis centre of the REST headquarters in Makelle. Officials there handle reports of growing emergency, but most are disciplined former guerrillas who are used to working with peasant farmers.

"They developed for 15 years out in the wilderness and the only way they could operate is with the full support and backing of the communities," says John Graham of Save the Children. "And because they have that mass membership, they've been able to do some really fantastic things."

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"...we have the political resources (and) political power to do something about it."

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And critically important is that Ethiopia's fragile democracy is still open. Prime Minister Meles Zenawa, who led the uprising against the old dictatorship, doesn't hide grim facts.

When we visit, he seems weary. Depressing reports cross his desk but iraq dominates world attention.

Meles Zenawa, prime minister of Ethiopia
"These are anxious moments for all of us here," he says. "The risks are there for everyone to see, anything between 11 to 14 million people are facing food shortages. We do not yet have the resources in our hands to be sure that we'll manage in the coming months."

As we talk, I wonder if the mere possibility of another famine is spreading desperation, even panic.

"Somebody who has lived through 1984, I think, is to some extent insured against desperation because now, despite the bigger scope of the problem, we have the political resources (and) political power to do something about it," says Zenawa. "In 1984, there was much more room for desperation because we were not in control. Now we are in control and we can do something about it. So however difficult things might be, desperation and despair is not something that enters my mind."

The government is racing its food reserves into the countryside. What's frightening is Ethiopia will need 1.5 million tons from the world but not even half that has been pledged so far.

A warehouse at the Tigray strategic reserve where emergency food is stored
To give some sense of the emergency, a warehouse that should be filled to the brim with food isn't. The Tigray strategic reserve should have 40,000 metric tons of food. It has less than a quarter of that. Hour after hour, day after day, the food is pouring out to go to the countryside and the sheds are emptying one after the other.

If sheds empty out completely, you will have mass starvation.

Ethiopia is a nation that does not waste any food. Almost every family lost members in the 1984 famine.

Even a break in the steady flow of supply trucks carrying food to the countryside could trigger the start of another migration.

Fear can be monitored in weekly gatherings, which locals call "rumour markets." Peasant farmers meet to trade or sell what's left of their sheep and goats. I didn't sense the panic selling or exodus I'd seen before, which indicates people still have confidence in early relief efforts.

But the emergency is bigger than a food crisis. It's not enough just to feed millions. Ethiopia smothers in poverty. It must somehow find development resources grow out of famine.

"Now droughts do not create famines in Canada or elsewhere. Droughts are creating risks of famine here," says Prime Minister Meles Zenawa. "Now had we had the money, the resources, we would have built structures to store the rain water and use it when the rainfall is not adequate. Now we do not have the resources to carry out such programs of water storage and management, which could have helped us overcome the problems of drought and the associated risk of famine. And then, of course, there is the overall poverty in the country.

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"I always say I am lucky I was not a grown-up during that terrible time when many people lost their lives. I am lucky I haven't seen it."

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Ancient land, old faiths – however battered Ethiopia is by calamity it always seems to revive in spirit.

Berhan Weldu in 1984
Many children of the famine, like Berhan Weldu, are symbols of this. In 1984, her face was known to millions watching TV news on the famine. Her coffin was already being prepared, aid workers said she was dying and there wasn't anything they could do for her.

To everyone's astonishment she survived. Three weeks later, we saw her again, just before her family was swept up again in the chaos of famine.

Four years later, we found her and her father in the north, as she became the first in her family to go to school.

Berhan Weldu, almost 20 years later
We've kept in touch. Still today, for famine youth there still no escaping the past altogether.

"I don't dream about it but in my mind I always think about that bad time," says Weldu (translated). "I always say I am lucky I was not a grown-up during that terrible time when many people lost their lives. I am lucky I haven't seen it, I do not know it. It is past and I did not feel it the way grown-up people see it, and I am glad I did not see it."

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"...most importantly, just like the one who saved my life when I was almost dead, I would like to train myself as a nurse and help those who need help..."

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Deeply religious, 21-year-old Weldu wonders why she survived when so many others died. She has also found a mission – she has just enrolled in nursing college.

"Since there is scarcity of nursing here in our country, I'd like to serve my country as a nurse," she says. "Also, it is easier to find a job as a nurse than in other professions here. But most importantly, just like the one who saved my life when I was almost dead, I would like to train myself as a nurse and help those who need help here in my country and save other lives, to help them."

Even the hungry do what they can to help. Across Tigray, farmers band together to help each other build small wells and ponds to survive future droughts. Food aid helps them work so tens of thousands of such small efforts continue even during this emergency.

CBC's Brian Stewart: "What is the mood of the people here? Some seem to sing, they talk… How is the general mood of the neighbours as they work together?"

Woman 2: "They face a lot of problems and people are weak but they also have hope for the future with God willing, and we have to use the water from the pond until God gives us rain."

CBC's Brian Stewart: "Some people may ask the question, if life is so hard hear on this land, why do people stay? Why don't they go away?"

Woman 2: "Some people go but they always come back because this land is their home and they cannot leave their land for good. They still have some hope."

It's backbreaking work, one farm at a time, but if enough water is caught during heavy rains it might just break a destitution cycle.

Farm children go to school as long as they can, on two often just one meal a day. But jobs off the land are scarce and industry is scarce. In Makelle, there are poignant signs of a dream in tourism that never takes off. Short of money for development, the government feels it must pour what it has into the land.

Opposition leaders like Beyane Petros expresses a national anger at Ethiopia's constant weakness.

Beyane Petros, an opposition leader
"Ethiopians are competent, and with that competence we are embarrassed to always go around and beg for food," he says.

But over more than years since I first went to Ethiopia here, I've run into the same arguments over development time and again. It remains a bizarre fact – this impoverished country receives the lowest rate of development aid in the world.

Impressed by Ethiopia's response to crisis, the West is now promising more help in restoring land. But John Graham of Save the Children still says countries that help famine emergencies do little to actually end emergencies.

"You can't simply say, 'Well we're going to cover the emergency and then we've already given them a lot of money so let's go somewhere else,'" he says. "Let's try to get that extra resource, try to get those sheep, those goats, so that people can get back on their feet. Otherwise we're going to be facing the same thing time and time again, where every few years we're going to be in destitution."

In Mekelle, at the Orthodox service of epiphany, priest bless holy water that they will spray on the vast congregation. It's also a prayer for rains to return, a call for hope.

"None of us wants to hear about the famine of 2003," says Graham. "What we want to hear about is the crisis of 2003 that was never allowed to develop into a famine, unlike every other drought crisis that's ever happened in Ethiopia. That's what we want to be able to see, and that's what I think we can see because we have the ability to respond to this one."

"And with God's help the rain will come and I have the belief we will work harder, farm better, and get more crops in the future… even in bad times," says Berhan Weldu.

It will be very close. Ethiopia needs enough rain in March and April, a good harvest, and much urgent care from the world. It's alarming how much has to go just right from here on.

Ethiopians, however, have come through in the past and may again… against all odds.

I am crying no more
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It is hard to express the feeling that goes on in me right now. It certainly does not look like the feeling of empathy for I know how it feels. I have been there before and experienced it. I know how compassion feels but it is different from what I am in now. I was there more than once - there in, Bati and Kobo and Dessie and Kemisse and in the Gerado valley in the midst of a full-blown famine raging in full swing killing people like flies. I had wept then till I was drenched in my tears. At that time crying and sharing whatever coins I had in my pockets even if it was meaningless gave me some meaning. Who said tears don't help. I think it helps keep some sanity when things go so unimaginably tragic. It can help you elude yourself and gives you the feeling that you are helpful while you are totally helpless. I am afraid that I cannot cry now. I am not feeling like it at all. If anything, I now feel sick- sick down to the stomach and angry and outraged or may be a combination of these all. I wish I could cry but I am afraid that is not the feeling running in me now. May be I have ran out of tears. May be I am so far away across the Oceans to feel the real agony. My eyes are now as dry as the desert.
I just saw a pictures on my computer screen, of two beautiful children with their muddy faces fighting it on to survive for a day or two and the mother who waits for her child to die in her arms. I just saw a skeletal picture of a dying man staring with his piercing eyes on the Economist that carries the title "Bad Weather Bad Government"

The old man's eyes are so penetrating that he seemed he wants to blame it on me or extract something out of me. I can't understand why he looks like intimidating to me and even scaring the hell out of me. Frankly I was afraid of him and felt like running away. I used to cry when I saw people like him and I think I saw at least one like him in 1984. I flipped to another website instead and saw the footages on the BBC website of the child who is reported to being resigned to even chase the fly sitting on his eyes and told the BBC reporter that he expects to die in a few days and before any food arrives in the village. I also saw the sorry face of my country's Prime Minister and his begging mouth trying to seek out help from the world. The last time I saw his picture was when he was trying to outthink the thinkers of Addis Ababa University, my former workplace. (Thank you god for saving me the agony of sitting and listening to all that farce). Watching him beg, I felt like lashing out against him. But a part of the rational me said why should he take the blame alone. He is only the latest face in a series of begging leaders. And what about all the rest of us who have studied how other people solved their problems, even far more serious problems, and have allowed this to occur not once but so repeatedly? Shall we all go free blaming it on someone? I answered it no. If we are to solve this problem we have to begin by agreeing that a big crime is committed. People have died in mass of hunger and somebody or some entity must be held responsible and indicted. Somebody, some entity has committed a repeated crime against humanity in Ethiopia and we should not let it get away with mass murder. I am led to believe that this is the first order of business if we are committed to solve this degrading and shameful tragedy from happening again. I am not for the blame it on someone game. I will stand and get counted to take my responsibility. I am tired of making accusations but for one last time let's find the real culprit and make the indictment. What has gone so wrong and who is doing this to this beautiful country?

Don't add to my sickness telling me the reason is the weather. This is a tired and sick joke. This is a human failure, and humans have to take the blame. This is the real name of the problem. I believe this is the truth whether one likes it or not. In fact, one set of criminals are those that blame the weather in an attempt to try to hide the real culprit. These people are lying through their teeth and should be held responsible for their lie. In 1973 the dergue and all of us blamed the famine on the Emperor and the emperor's men blamed it on the weather. In 1984 I have heard the guys in power now speak full mouth blaming the dergue for the famine, the dergue blamed it on the weather. Now the Meles and his people blame it on the weather. The critics blame it on its policies. How ironic that the more things change the more they remain the same. The same television set the same pictures only new beggars. This is a sickening game and it more than stinks.

Frankly the weather has nothing to do with our famine. I repeat! the weather has nothing to do with our famine. I am a student of Geography and understand my trade very well and can argue this point successfully. I can point to you countries that do not see a gallon of rain dropping on their land but have not had famine. You don't have to be a food producer country not to be struck by famine for that matter. I have seen far more sever droughts that occurred in many parts of the world and have not caused a case of hunger let alone famine that kills people in mass. South East Asia lives under the same monsoon today as it use for very many years, but look at the long way they came trough to trash famine out of their system and that only in a few decades. I can go on and on and on with similar examples.

I am of the feeling that Ethiopia's entire elite has to be on trial. Of course, first in the line of trial have to be the government officials who have made it their primary job to keep themselves in power rather than the welfare of the people. Of course, their crime is serious because they have been presiding over our misery in many cases tying the hands of people who want to make a difference. Their lies and sorry excuses must be punishable. I have heard EPRDF officials for example priding themselves for running a good early warning system of famine. These guys should be ashamed of it for their only job is preparing the country for early begging rather than fighting the root cause. Why can't they think of begging as something unacceptable and humiliating in the first place and use the resource in that direction. Why do we need that RRC, or what ever is its name today? Why do we need institutions that lord over famine in the first place? What have these institutions done so far except institutionalizing famine and beggary? Wouldn't it be a good idea to have an Institute of Famine Eradication instead of the Early Warning System or the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, which by the way consume huge resources themselves then becoming part of the problem rather than the solution? Why on earth should Ethiopia, the water tower of Eastern Africa, the land of hundreds of perennial rivers go hungry even for a day? Can't we spend ten years working on one or two of the big river basins, which can more than feed the whole country? Don't tell me that need capital and technology. Everyone knows that. Better beg for the damn technology and capital and squeeze the country's resources once and work on both sides of the hand for ten years than become perennial and shameless beggars. Make it a policy priority and any average economic planner can tell us how to do it. Countries have dug their way out of this kind of messes. Why can't we? We have to dig ourselves out of this mud and, believe it or not, there is no other way out.

And there are those of us who only know how to complain and do not come up with a problem solving idea. I mean those of us who are educated and pride and congratulate ourselves with our educational achievements and success in life. Those of us who believe that our education is a license to escaping the fait of the unfortunate victims and an end in itself, particularly those of us in Diaspora who seem to have shed all senses of responsibility. How about those of us who have done nothing if any to stop the famine except playing the blame game? Don't tell me you have contributed money in the past or you have cried. That was not the way to become part of a solution. Criminal are also those of us who try to hide ourselves in Ethiopia's history - in Yohannes, Menilik or Tewodros and the glory of the Battle of Adwa as if these can be turned into a slice of bread or a drop of water now.

And of course the demon that has possessed Ethiopia for so long has to be tried. The demon that makes the country eat her children? Don't ask me how, but I feel the demon that made us worship guns and hatred and cruelty has to be tried and punished one way or another. The demon that made the Abay River disgorge the mass of our soil and water outside of Ethiopia has now made another river out of airplanes that carry away and disgorge the country's children in Europe and America. Here is my bigger fear. If everything and every criminal is left as is, I am sure there will be another, perhaps bigger, famine down the line. You ain't seen nothin' yet, as my American brothers would say.

Those of you who want to keep on crying you can go ahead and cry. Get drenched in your tears and you will see what you can get. May be it helps you get over it for now. Rest assured it won't help you solve the problem. As for me, I have done that already. I don't want to look like an idiot any more. Even if I want to cry I have tears no more.
[Opinions in this article are solely that of the writer.]