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Text File | 1994-05-02 | 15KB | 332 lines

<text> <title> East Africa: Journalist Warns of Severe Famine in North </title> <article> <hdr> Foreign Broadcast Information Service, February 14, 1990 East Africa: Journalist Warns of Severe Famine in North </hdr> <body> [Article by Mohamed Amin: "The Famine Next Time; 4 Million Face A Slow Death by Starvation" Nairobi SUNDAY NATION in English 10 Dec 89 pp 11,17] [Text] Photojournalist and television cameraman Mohamed Amin, whose moving reports of Ethiopia's 1984-85 famine aroused the conscience of mankind, warns of yet another massive famine to come. Braving the potent risks of landmines, ambushes and air strikes--and surviving a rolled vehicle--his 1-day assignment took him thousands of kilometres across the deserts of Sudan and the barren mountains of Eritrea and Tigray in northern Ethiopia. Once again the spectre of famine haunts embattled Ethiopia--and on a scale that threatens to be greater than that of 1984 when shocked government and world citizens sent more than a billion pounds sterling in cash and kind to save millions from certain death. Five years later, I was unprepared both for the scale of the war I witnessed--one of the largest since World War II--and the depth of the threatened famine. Already, four million people face death from starvation following drought and crop failure in the rebel-held northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigray. Field workers, missionaries, clinical staff, and aid personnel all told me that time was running out and without a massive international effort in the next few weeks, the effects of the 1990 famine would be much more harrowing than the previous one which claimed at least 800,000 lives. Now the war situation does not allow any food to come in, except through Sudan. Father Angelo Regazzo, who runs a training school at Mekelle, said things were really changing for the better in 1986. But with a scarcity of rain in 1987 and 1988, and very little rain or none at all in 1989, the situation was now critical. "I think there's going to be another famine. And I think everybody will be afraid of it because the people do not have the facilities to take food around or to get food in, so I think it's going to be worse. "Before, we had this airlift. Now the airport is completely destroyed and there is no permission for any plane to land here and it's going to be a really hard, hard time." The missionary added that because of the war, the people could not travel freely or grow crops as they used to. "They are afraid and when people are afraid, they're not willing to do anything. Therefore, they are just waiting for somebody to give a hand. "When the government left in February, we were completely cut-off and went back another 50 years. We do not really see any solution. Unless the boundaries are open or a free channel for food coming in is allowed, we are really going to face starvation." He added that unless the war situation changed, there would be disaster. "By 6.30 in the morning, everybody has to be off the roads because the MiGs come and bomb between 7 and 7.30 a.m." Nobody is around until between 5.30 and 6 p.m. They stay near the trenches and the air raid shelters they have dug close to their homes. "So it is an impossible life. People need to prepare their food but they cannot come out from the trenches because they're so afraid. "They cannot harvest and this is the time of harvesting, so they have to do it at night hoping there is the moon. But even in the night, there are reconnaissance flights and people are really afraid. "It is an impossible life. Everybody is praying for peace and we hope that peace will come. I don't know what is going to happen. "At a time when Ethiopia again needs outside help, how can people understand that there should be famine when at the same time the government is bombing the people? "The world should know what is happening. People are dying. And not for a just cause but because somebody would like to impose their own way. The world should know what is happening here and they would understand." Sister Jean Harris, another missionary in the area around Mekelle, told me: "Before, when we heard planes coming, everyone ran out to cheer. "Now there is a real feeling of menace because they know it is the other way round--they are not exactly aiming at us but Mekelle is going to be bombed. It's a menacing feeling." No matter how much aid is donated by the West, the situation this time is far more uncertain and perilous than five years ago. At the moment, all food and medical supplies have to follow the same appalling route that I took by night. Anything moving by day is prone to air strike by the Ethiopian Air Force. The main problem is that there are just not enough vehicles to carry the massive supplies needed, nor enough men to drive them. And all along the way I was haunted by those so tragic images of 1984-85--starving waifs dying as I filmed them. Another missionary in Adigrat, Father Kevin O'Mahoney, told me that in 1984, the famine was "much more on a national level. This time it's more localised but many districts are drastically affected and in some of the affected areas, it could be even more precarious than in 1984. "An 81-year-old Ethiopian says he has never seen such a bad rainy season as this one. Another priest says he has never seen such a disastrous rainy season--disastrous in the sense that there has been no rain when there should have been. "It's the first time in many years that I have not seen a flood sweeping across the town. "The people will starve unless protective measures are taken. The present situation is complicated by manmade disasters. The organisations which are trying to help the people at the moment are doing their best to provide the ways and means of providing relief food for the people. "But if relief food is not provided, many will die. They have been living on prickly pear or cactus pears since September. Now these are beginning to die out. The really hard time will begin in January. "At the moment, they're eating their reserves--they're eating what they put away for future sowing as seed." The situation, he said, was complicated by the war for two reasons: "First, the problem of transporting food from internal markets and, secondly, the complicated logistics of getting supplies from foreign-based donor agencies. "In this region, it's estimated that the harvest failure is between 92 and 100 percent. In some other parts of Tigray, 60 percent of the people need food. At Axum it's a little better. But in this district, the needs are between 92 and 100 percent." The missionary said he did not think he would ever see a repeat of the 1984-85 famine. Lessons were learnt from that horror. It became policy not to establish hunger camps for these disrupted family units. "If people stay at home at least the old people and the children will be catered for. They'll die but they'll die with respect, dignity, love--and affection." Today, the problem is out of control. "We have tried to make the people independent. We want them to be self-reliant and we have taken steps down the valleys, to build small check-dams. Nothing big. "But when you get a total drought, what are you going to do?" My journey took me more than 600 kilometres from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum to Kassala, where I had to get a Sudanese permit to travel to the Eritrean border. I also had to acquire permits from the rebel Eritrean People's Liberation Movement (EPLM) to travel across Eritrean territory with my Tigrayan People's Liberation Front [TPLF] escort to Tigray. From Kassal