East Africa is in the grip of a drought-induced food disaster, with 15 million people facing severe food shortages. Mark Lang, from the Christian relief agency Tearfund, has just returned from EthiopiaHave your say - Copy of comments
If you’ve never met someone facing severe hunger, let me introduce you to Demisse Mada.
Demisse is a three-year-old boy living in a highland village in southern Ethiopia. Actually the word living doesn’t seem right because it’s not life that he’s experiencing but an existence and a harrowing one at that.
Lack of food has left Demisse devoid of the normal signs of life you might expect to find in a three-year-old.
He does not play, run around or laugh. In fact he barely moves at all. Hunger has deprived his tiny frame of energy.
Most of the time we are with his family he stands rooted to the spot, looking ahead, his face a study of seriousness beyond his years.
His belly is bloated, most likely caused by intestinal worms, and his legs are desperately thin. Press three of your fingers together and they will be wider than one of Demisse’s legs.
A member of our team, who has seen many malnourished children in the course of his worldwide work, assesses that Demisse is showing the symptoms of marasmus – or acute wasting.
He classifies the boy as severely malnourished which is about as bad as it gets in hunger terms.
One of the most striking legacies of the malnutrition is that Demisse doesn’t smile. Not once in the several hours we are with his family. It’s not right but then again nor is the situation that he and his family face.
Right now this little boy and tens of thousands of young children like him are enduring a food disaster that is affecting large tracts of Ethiopia.
Tearfund has been working with church partners over the last few months to respond to this crisis, helping to feed 15,000 people, but it is becoming clear that the scale of the response needs to be stepped up to match the growing need for help.
Short season rains due earlier this year failed to fall in sufficient quantity, if at all, or at the right time, resulting in an extended drought.
Photo: Lack of food has left Demisse devoid of the normal signs of life you might expect to find in a three-year-old (Mark Lang)
Photo: Demisse's grandmother Malaka, with some of the family's seven children (Mark Lang)
How interesting!
Ethiopia is waging a cool war in Somalia, has border issues with Eritrea with countless soldiers marauding around and, surprise!, it cannot feed its very own people.. And we (Europe) are pouring money to .. feed the bottomless pockets of its leaders? Talk about donor's fatigue..
Daniele Pierangeli, Roma, Italy
Ethiopia is awash with young children. Officially, 43% of the population is under 14. There's no correlation between the country being able to feed itself and its rate of procreation. So temporary food aid is no solution. Aid MUST be in the form of birth control education and farming technology.
P Williams, London,
In 2005 Ethiopa spent 296 million dollars on military expenditure. Every penny we give in aid props up this vile situation. I, for one, will never give another penny to Africa, unless it is for an African-initiated grassroots scheme like the Under Tree Schools in southern Sudan.
SarahN., London, UK
The population doubles in this country every few years. No aid in the past would have produced better results that trying to stick a plaster on it. The only aid I support is no aid and birth control.
Frederick, London, UK
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