Child Hunger in Ethiopia

I ask all of you NOT to turn away from this sight. This is happening right now. It could have been your kid, wife, husband, any relative....Think about that.
This is so sad.
Food,
Medical care,
And there will be no more deaths.


Zway, Ethiopia: This child may or may not live as a result of severe malnutrition. Babies born here do not receive names during the first month of their lives, for fear they may not survive.

Zway, Ethiopia: A mother holds her two year old child, severely emaciated from lack of nutrition. Such scenes, reminiscent of the famine in the early 1980s, are due to severe drought which caused failed crops, malnutrition, and drought related diseases.

Zway, Ethiopia: Mothers wait to weigh in their children at the Therapeutic Feeding Center.



Zway, Ethiopia: Therapeutic Feeding Center.

Zway, Ethiopia. Famix Rations at the Therapeutic Feeding Center.



Zway, Ethiopia: Ailing 15 year old Hussein Nuru arrived a week ago with his mother, Jamila Ilhoro and baby brother. The family had to walk for 4 hours to get to the Therapeutic Feeding Center. Husseins father, sick at home for the past year, is unable to provide food for the family.

Zway, Ethiopia: The Therapeutic Feeding Center feeds 5,000 people and permanently houses 174. As the situation worsens, the numbers continue to grow.

Boromo Waleda, Ethiopia: Children wait in line for a packet of crackers distributed by American and European volunteers.

Oromia Region, Ethiopia: 12 year old Helo Bulfato and her 4 year old sister, Guye, carry water from a river to their home.

Zway, Ethiopia: Therapeutic Feeding Center

Zway, Ethiopia: Tears flow and flies swarm at the Therapeutic Feeding Center, as Negele Dasiso, a mother from Bulbula, cradles her child, Chana Bite. "Yesterday one child died. This month 15 died in this camp," states Sister Eliza, a nun at the feeding and medical center run by the Salesian Church.

A Family Living In West Hararghe, Ethiopia.

A family going thru hunger and suffering together in west Ethiopia.
Mother, son and Husband......................


Hardim, West Hararghe, Ethiopia - Zeinab Aliye has no more milk to give her nine-year-old son, Ahmed. The family has eaten all their food and their farm has been totally devastated by the drought. Nutritional surveys in several regions of Ethiopia are already showing increased cases of malnutrition such as marasmus and kwashiorkor among children and adults.



Mieso, West Hararghe - Sani Yuya's two-year-old son, Ahmed, is malnourished. With no proper harvest for four years, his family of four faces critical food shortages along with over one million people in the region. Although traditionally a food producing area, many farmers have no maize, which is harvested green at this time of year, and represents an important lean season food. They also lack livestock products such as milk. Across Ethiopia, the drought could result in 10 to 14 million people needing food aid in 2003, depending on October's rainfall.

Obesity or Starvation? WE COULD DO PLENTY ABOUT THIS ISSUE.

The Opposite of Obesity: Undernutrition Overwhelms the World's Children

An alarming number of studies report that overnutrition and the resulting obesity are a growing health problem for children in industrialized nations and even some developing ones. The explosion of such studies might seem to suggest that starvation is a thing of the past, yet children in many developing countries still go hungry. Furthermore, a lack of calories and nutrients--or undernutrition--can worsen the effects of infectious disease, and thereby causes half of all child deaths worldwide, report public health experts at The Johns Hopkins University and the World Health Organization in the 1 July 2004 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Hunger persists. A severely malnourished 4-year-old in Ethiopia is typical of thousands of children around the world whose health and lives are devastated by lack of adequate food.
Image credit: Sven Torfinn/Panos Pictures

Africa Needs Our Help Now!

Please, all of you in your homes, get a sense of what's happening in the REAL world.
These are people. Like you, me...everyone.
Do not pretend this is NOT happening.
Millions of people are dying in Africa in less than a month. They are all seeking our HELP.
-------------PLEASE LET IT SINK IN YOUR MINDS -------------

Much of Africa depends on Western aid for survival. Here, a leprosy victim clutches at a Jesuit aid worker in Sudan.




While hunger continues to plague Ethiopia on a regular basis, the famine feared for late last year failed to materialize.



Ethiopia is often a victim of severe draught.


Aids is just one of the many difficulties facing Africa.

A Place of Sorrow and Shattered Dreams

Photo essay: Ethiopia food crisis

Photos by Hege Opseth Norwegian Church Aid/ACT InternationalText by Hege Opseth and Callie Long

Showa, Ethiopia, January 8, 2003

Driven by hunger and a promise of good land for farming and grazing they came to Showa in their thousands. Finding shelter in an abandoned military camp, they all came in hope. Instead, what 26,000 people from the drought-stricken Harar region found over the course of half a year, were shattered dreams and unimaginable sorrow, despair and hunger, funerals and in the end, a loss of hope.





"Four children will be buried tonight", say the sextons from the cemetery - all relatives of the children who died over the weekend. Children are buried in mass graves. Wild roses thickets are laid on top of the graves to deter animals from scavenging. "One cemetery is already full."





The haunted look of hunger is everywhere. Listless children, too exhausted to care about the flies that throng and settle everywhere, watch as their mothers try to help, their thin cries mixing with the muted despair uttered by their mothers. "The worst thing about this life is to see how the children suffer. They are very ill", says Fatoma Alisho.




"I am going to die", says Tofokara. She too has lost hope. "Only God knows what will happen … if we will get food, she says." Further away from Showa, in the Shinile region, some hours drive from Dire Dawa into the desert lies Asivuli. The heat is extreme during daytime. At night, temperatures plummet. Members of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International are working on providing shelter for the people who have fled their drought stricken regions, only to find themselves stranded in the desert. Meanwhile, meagre rations from the United Nation's World Food Program keep people alive.




Famine spares no one.

Members of ACT International, who have joined forces under the umbrella of the Joint Relief Partnership (JRP) to tackle the growing humanitarian emergency in Ethiopia, estimate conservatively that about 6,2 million people are trapped in the cycle of famine and hunger. This latest emergency in Ethiopia has been brought on by a number of factors - recurring and lingering drought in some districts (known as woredas), sporadic rainfall or no rainfall at all and the resulting decimation of entire crops.






In an ideal world those suffering from hunger would be taken to hospital where they would be fed small portions of food five times a day to help them regain their strength. The reality is that millions of Ethiopians will never receive this kind of help - food is scarce and hospitalisation, an unimaginable form of assistance and relief.






Hundreds of people arrive daily in Showa, hoping against all odds that they will somehow survive the disaster.




The dream of a better future has ended here at Showa in an abandoned military camp - a place where hope is hard to find, but grief and sorrow not. The 'lucky ones' sleep in the condemned barracks. The rest of the people sleep outside on the ground. And they wait…

Disaster Looms: Millions More Ethiopians Face Hunger

( Dont be too lazy to read this artical)



The UN World Food Programme on Tuesday urged an immediate response to head off a massive humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia because the number of people in need of food aid is expected to rise sharply from the current 6 million to between 10 to 14 million people next year.

"The number of people requiring food assistance in 2003 will depend on this month's rainfall. If the rains stop early, 14 million people will need food aid, but even if they continue as normal, 10 million people will still need relief supplies," said Georgia Shaver, WFP Representative in Ethiopia.

"These figures are staggering and the international community should be prepared to face the worst-case scenario which will require between one to two million tonnes of food aid. If donors respond quickly, we can help avoid immense human suffering in Ethiopia, " she said.

Recent joint WFP, donor and government assessment missions across the country reveal widespread losses of maize and sorghum crops as well as further reduced sources of pasture and water. The drought has caused numerous livestock deaths, with remaining animals only just surviving. Particularly affected are the pastoralist region of Afar, eastern parts of Oromiya Region lowlands, several areas of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region and northern Somali Region.

Due to drought and erratic rainfall, many pastoralists and farmers face ashortage of livestock products and a lack of green harvest of maize and sorghum, which are harvested green and are an important lean season food. These are also the staple foods for most rural people - accounting for over 40 percent of the total cereal production in Ethiopia. Nutritional surveys in several regions of Ethiopia are already showing increased cases of malnutrition among the weak and vulnerable.

"We have started distributing food in affected areas early enough to contain the crisis, but if we don't get more pledges quickly, aid agencies' relief stocks will run out before December and the situation will deteriorate rapidly," said Georgia Shaver.

On 7th October, the national Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission launched an urgent appeal for food for some seven million people during October - December. For the remainder of the year Ethiopia needs 273,000 tonnes of food.

The United States, the European Union, Sweden, China, Italy and Germany have already announced contributions totalling 200,000 tonnes.

Besides food required until the end of the year, WFP is also seeking funding as soon as possible to cover the needs for the first quarter of 2003, estimated at between 350,000 - 500,000 tonnes (US$150 million to US$200 million). Timely donors' pledges are vital so that food aid shipments are scheduled to match the food requirements through the year.

So far in 2002, WFP has received contributions totalling 300,000 tonnes of food (US$130 million), to feed approximately three million people per month in Ethiopia. Beneficiaries receive basic food rations consisting of cereals while the most vulnerable groups, children under five, pregnant and nursing mothers, the sick and the elderly ? receive supplementary rations of enriched blended foods. (WFP press release)

Ethiopia ( DO NOT LOOK AWAY FROM IT. THIS IS THE WORLD'S REAL REALITY.)

Hunger in Ethiopia. Photo by Eric Gottesman, Hart Fellow working with Save the Children in Ethiopia. Reprinted from the International Herald Tribune.