Drought returns to haunt Ethiopia
Pastor Dale Morgan
Drought returns to haunt Ethiopia*
By Barry Malone
Reuters
Monday, May 19, 2008; 6:21 AM
SIRARO, Ethiopia (Reuters) - Ethiopian mother Ayantu Tamon has lost a
child to hunger every year for the last four and now cradles her
severely malnourished and weakened three-year-old son Hirbu in her arms.
"I just hope God lets him live," she says. "I have only two children left."
Hirbu is being fed by drip at Rophi Church in Siraro, a remote farming
area 350 km (220 miles) south of the capital Addis Ababa.
He is one of 233 children who have been brought starving to the small
church in just the last three weeks.
The U.N. Children's Agency UNICEF says a recent drought in Ethiopia has
caused a food crisis and estimates 126,000 children are suffering from
severe malnutrition.
But the government and aid agencies are struggling to find money to
help, with international food prices rising sharply.
UNICEF says 6 million Ethiopian children under the age of five may be at
risk of malnutrition.
And the U.N. World Food Programme estimates 3.4 million of Ethiopia's
more than 80 million people will need food relief from July to September.
"The great tragedy is that Ethiopia had been making some impressive
improvements before this drought," said Viviane Van Steirteghem, UNICEF
deputy representative in the country.
Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa's second most populous nation, had been
cited as an example to other African countries after reducing its infant
mortality rate to 123 deaths from every 1,000 births from 166 in just
five years.
"UNFORTUNATE CHAIN"
Innovative schemes to reduce the impact of drought and train local
people as health workers were also introduced and much praised
internationally.
"It's a chain of unfortunate events that has led to this," says Lisetta
Trebbi, Head of Relief the United Nation's World Food Programme in Ethiopia.
"We have drought -- a really poor rainy season -- and, of course, we
have high food prices worldwide."
The global rise in food prices has hit the WFP hard.
The organization now needs to raise $147 million to tackle Ethiopia's
needs. Aid workers say the money isn't coming in time, with donors
concentrating on disaster-hit China and Myanmar.
At a Rophi Church, mothers hold their sick children in their laps,
sitting on dirty sheets sweltering in the heat inside makeshift tents.
"It's not like the normal sound of children crying," said one nun. "It's
desperate."
The church and the local government were caring for the children who
started arriving at the rate of about 20 a day to a height of 74 last
Friday alone.
"There are more people out there who would normally depend on a harvest
in July," Trebbi said.
"But, because of the drought, they will not now get that harvest and
their food reserves will be gone. This situation is deteriorating very
rapidly."