Forget Ethiopia, there are places worse off
GISET, Eritrea: Humble farmers in this remote, dusty mountain village have
managed to get by up till now despite two years of little rainfall. But if
relief food does not arrive soon, residents of Giset could go from being
hungry to starving.
The UN World Food Program says these people are representative of the
millions threatened by food shortages in the Horn of Africa who are in
danger of being forgotten.
While attention has been focussed on Ethiopia, where 7.7 million are
threatened with starvation, the WFP estimates that 8 million more are in
danger in nine other countries in eastern Africa.
Catherine Bertini, UN special envoy to the Horn of Africa, on Sunday visited
Giset, 90 miles (150 km) northwest of the Eritrean capital, Asmara. She
expressed disappointment with the lack of response to a WFP appeal this
month for $7.9 million to feed 212,000 Eritreans.
"This is exactly the kind of situation we are talking about in much of the
region," said Bertini, who is also the head of the WFP. She is on a weeklong
tour of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea and Kenya. "These people have been able
to cope until now but their own resources have almost gone."
Squatting in front of her small thatched hut, Fatima Adam said men had
already left Giset in search of work after their harvests had failed and
their livestock died or was sold to buy food. "There was no rain last year,"
she said. "There is nothing. I am waiting for (food) distribution - my
husband cannot work because he is sick."
Her family's eight cattle died last year. Their 10 goats were sold or died.
Last year, they borrowed cattle and planted sorghum. The rain failed to
come, and the crops never germinated. It is a common tale in Giset, a
village of fewer than 1,000 people.
The only assistance the villagers receive is 33 pounds (15 kg) of grain each
month from a government aid agency. Fatima said that even if rain does come,
it will not help because the family has no oxen to plow their tiny plot
carved out of the rocky, sun-baked earth of tiny Eritrea.
Grain prices also have shot up 30 per cent as the shortage takes effect on
trade, said Kofi Owusu, the WFP's emergency coordinator in Eritrea.
And conflicts are affecting relief operations in many of the countries WFP
says are facing serious food shortages, including Ethiopia, Eritrea,
Somalia, Sudan and Burundi. The WFP estimates that 850,000 people or
one-quarter of Eritrea's population of 3.5 million need assistance as a
result of being is placed by the country's 23-month border war with former
ruler Ethiopia, according to Worku Tesfamichael, the government's relief
commissioner.
"The war will not help Ethiopian and Eritrean people who are in need of food
and development," she said. "War is only destruction, there is nothing to
gain."(AP)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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