Ethiopia the neediest get food aid

Hadero, Ethiopia - -- One by one, the children are placed on a scale hanging from a makeshift wooden stand.

The mothers look pleadingly at the Doctors Without Borders aid worker, but he keeps his eyes on his clipboard, tallying the figures that determine whether each child is sick enough to eat today.

The scales in a rural clinic in Hadero, Ethiopia, are the latest indicator of the severity of the global food crisis.

There is only enough medicine and high-energy Plumpy'Nut peanut paste for the most severe cases. Outside, hundreds of hungry women and children throng the gates, desperate to go through the same brutal selection process, pushed back by guards brandishing sticks to clear a path for the next in line.

In this African nation, about 10 million people, more than 12 percent of the population, are now in need of emergency food aid after a drought wiped out harvests. But because grain is now twice as expensive as a year ago -- if it is available at all -- there is not enough food in Ethiopia to feed everyone in need.

Some aid workers are concerned that the combination of forces could force the country into the worst crisis since the infamous Ethiopian famine that killed an estimated 1 million people and was brought home to millions of television viewers across the world in the mid-1980s.

'Prioritizing' aid

Aid workers and government officials are thus forced to "prioritize," a harsh but necessary part of any relief effort, but rarely as grim a task as in Ethiopia at present.

"People don't know yet how widespread and severe the world hunger crisis is," says David Beckmann, president of Washington D.C.-based Bread for the World. "The gruesome things now happening in Ethiopia may be the first example of a country that's being pushed into a humanitarian crisis partly because of bad weather, but partly because of the high price of food and the high price of fuel."

The World Food Program, for example, is supposed to be doing its part by procuring emergency rations sufficient for 4.6 million Ethiopians, but because of rising expenses it only has the grain, oil, and corn-soya blend for about half that number.

Not much food left to buy

Ethiopia's foreign-funded welfare system, the Productive Safety Net Program, may get around the food shortage by simply handing out cash to some of its beneficiaries who need extra help this year due to the drought. But even with cash in hand, some worry whether there will be any food at all left to buy.

The shortfall in this so-called preventative component of the relief effort means that clinics like the one in Hadero could be thronged by even larger crowds of women and children in mortal need of intensive, and expensive, treatment.

"It is quite important to inject food rapidly into the community," says François Colas, country director in Ethiopia for the Belgian chapter of Doctors without Borders. "As long as food isn't distributed, we will see people falling into severe malnutrition."

The Ethiopian government said earlier this month that 75,000 children are already in peril from the drought.

Most are now in the country's southern lowlands, though the crisis is spreading to the northern highlands.

Drought-stricken zones have been divided into six priority levels, depending on the prevalence of malnourishment.

The largest aid efforts are now under way in areas in the top two categories.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ethiopia
• oromo
• somali
• ogaden
• oromia
• kenya
• uganda
• eritrea
• africa
• world

[Shadiyaification]

@Leeshan82 Lol! I totally agree with you..Never been more proud of What you just said there. I am going to do the same Leeshan82.

[Leeshan82]

@Shadiyaification :LOL! I am a girl. my reply is 4 that racist, The truth is OUR resources & raw materials sustain people like trent079 and their so called superior civilization. There is enough land &food produced in Ethiopia 2 feed Ethiopians. It is bad leadership. Until we see an end to external appointment of dictatorships, until there is an end to unfair terms of int trade, until landgrabbing stops and infrastructure development is not only to facilitate looting- we are making babies!!

[Shadiyaification]

@Leeshan82 not sure, but if u r a guy I am willing to carry a twin every year for you. U get my vote in this one.Good luck with God willing of course..

[novamundus]

Lol im sitting at my computer eating cheese with a nice cold drink. Let these fucking animals help themselves lol owned.

[hollymatterson]

I'm pissed that the aid money we send is diverted to developing Eurotrash housing for the bourgeoisie in the capital Addis Ababa. While not directly being diverted though, the reason the government gets aid money is because they blow their entire budget on financing shit like mansions and luxury hotels. Then after that don't have enough money to feed the starving people. I think the first world governments need to audit countries like these that receive aid money.

[Tsmmachge]

I dsegree Ethiopia have food to eat just our government is so corrupt. Ethiopians suffer under government corruption.which is commonly seen as the threshold for serious corruption.

Corruption and lack of transparency clearly remain a major problem across Africa.

[Leeshan82]

Howz about the 20% of the worlds population stop hogging 80% of the worlds resources. As long as as summumabitches like you keep selling us guns and propping up our dictators we are making as many babies as we can! It's a biological law to procreate more when bastards like you are wishing our demise in order to take our land and resources. I hope you burn in hell and die of thirst as our children splash in the waters of the Nile. After your comment i'm going to make sure i have twins every year

[luvmebambi]

well it seems like some people are prevligde to ask for their conditions of life before birth what of the weakest minds who ever spoke had to be you trent079 my karma give you its sweetest kiss

[buzzmaxwell]

i can not believe what i see.your lack of humanity and compassion makes me feel sick. the scene of thousands of innocents dying from starvation from the horrible drought and lack of UN aid because of the corn mandate from the Democrats in Washington deciding that all fuel should have 10% ethanol instead of drilling for our needs,we take away the food and put it in our cars for pathetic losers like you to go to your loser job and accumulate your fake wealth..you are a fucking sick piece of shit!

[nustrmus]

ethio,ethio,ethio.