Famine Looming in Ethiopia

[waltky]

Ethiopia may require $1.4 billion in humanitarian assistance for drought relief...

Oxfam: 10.2M Ethiopians require humanitarian aid as drought continues
Jan. 29, 2016 -- A report from Oxfam indicates Ethiopia may require $1.4 billion in humanitarian assistance over the course of 2016 due to the effects of a debilitating drought.

The charitable organization announced Thursday a majority of those located in the country's eastern Siti zone depend on food aid, which they are stretching between themselves and their starving livestock. An estimated 10.2 million people are expected to need assistance this year, Oxfam says, a jump from the 8.2 million people the World Food Programme reported in need of assistance in October 2015.

Oxfam reports Ethiopia will require more than $1 billion in humanitarian aid over the course of 2016 as a drought continues to debilitate the region.​

Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought in three decades due in part to this year's abnormally aggressive El Niño weather system. "People are watching their crops wither and their animals starve to death all the while knowing they don't have enough food and water themselves," Oxfam Humanitarian Director Nigel Timmins said in a statement. "The Ethiopian government is doing its best but the scale of the problems requires urgent and significant funding from donors to complement the government's efforts."

The organization said it is helping support more than 160,000 people in three areas with water shipments, repairs and sustenance for livestock. Oxfam says it needs $25 million in order to expand its reach to 777,000 people.

Oxfam: 10.2M Ethiopians require humanitarian aid as drought continues

 

[skye]

you helping them walky?

 

[waltky]

US to chip in $97M for Ethiopian drought relief...

US pledges $97M to combat Ethiopia's drought
Jan 31,`16 -- The U.S. has boosted its emergency food aid to Ethiopia by nearly $100 million to combat one of the worst droughts in decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced Sunday.

The aid is urgently needed to head off a humanitarian disaster brought on by the El Nino climate phenomenon that has affected seasonal rains, USAID administrator Gayle Smith said. "The funding for this is not where it needs to be and we are up against very tight timelines," she said at a briefing during the annual African Union summit, which ended Sunday. "This is the worst El Nino in history and it has affected the African continent in particular, most dramatically in Ethiopia where 11 million people have been affected."

On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Ethiopia's Ziway-Dugda region, one of the areas hit by drought, where he was welcomed by thousands of residents in the streets of Ogolcho, the biggest town there. Ban visited a food distribution center, and met with farmers and relief workers. "This challenge may last some time. With the continued and concerted effort, I think we can overcome. And I (am) very much moved to have seen how hard the people are working," Ban said.

A young Afar boy walks through failed crops and farmland in Magenta area of Afar, Ethiopia. Morbid thoughts linger on people’s minds in the area. The crops have failed and farm animals have been dying amid severe drought that has left Ethiopia appealing for international help to feed its people.​

The El Nino warming over the Pacific Ocean has been particularly severe this year with spring and summer rains failing in Ethiopia and causing crops to fail and killing livestock. The $97 million from USAID will include about 176,000 metric tons of food to be distributed to 4 million people. Since October 2014, the U.S. has given $532 million in humanitarian aid to Ethiopia. The U.N. has issued an international appeal for $1.4 billion in emergency funding for Ethiopia, of which less than half has been met by donors.

Smith said the U.S. will urge other international donors to step in and support Ethiopia's efforts to deliver food aid and preserve the development gains of the last two decades. Donors have been distracted by crises in Syria, South Sudan, Yemen and the European migration issue, she said. Ethiopia was famously devastated by a drought in the 1980s exacerbated by a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands. Despite the severity of the current drought, the existing government safety net is expected to prevent another famine, according to aid officials.

News from The Associated Press

 

[anotherlife]

Famine in Ethiopia? Ethiopian national tradition. So what's new? By the way, this keeps Ethiopian girls in better shape than most other countries, I must say.

 

[waltky]

Drought relief runnin' out in Ethiopia...

Ethiopia warns drought emergency food aid is running out
Sunday 11th June, 2017 - Ethiopia's government has warned it will run out of emergency food aid starting next month as the number of drought victims in the East African country reached 7.8 million.

An international delegation visited one of the worst-affected areas on Friday near the border with Somalia, which suffers from widespread drought as well. Ethiopia's disaster relief chief Mitiku Kassa said the country needs more than one billion dollars (£784 million) for emergency food assistance. Seasonal rains have been critically small and local cattle are dying. The number of drought victims has risen by two million people in the past four months. The risk of an acute food and nutritional disaster is "very high", the disaster relief chief said. The International Organisation for Migration said hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, with the problem compounded as people pour into Ethiopia from Somalia.

The number of drought victims has risen by two million people in the past four months​

A United Nations humanitarian envoy said donor fatigue and similar crises elsewhere have hurt aid efforts. Both Somalia and neighbouring South Sudan are among four countries recently singled out by the United Nations in a 4.4 billion dollar (£3.4 billion) aid appeal to avert catastrophic hunger and famine. Famine has already been declared for two counties in South Sudan. "Our main concern should be for this drought in Ethiopia not to degenerate into a famine," said the humanitarian envoy, Ahmed Al- Meraikhi. The UN has warned that Ethiopia's drought will pose a severe challenge to the humanitarian community by mid-July with the current slow pace of aid.

Along with the drought, Ethiopia also faces an outbreak of what authorities call acute watery diarrhoea, though critics have said the government should call it cholera instead. "I've never seen the resources so poor to respond to the crisis," the country director for aid group Save the Children, John Graham, said of the drought. "It is very worrying. These people are not going to be able to continue to survive in these dilapidated displaced people's camps. "It could get very much worse. We are also worried that some of the children affected by the drought may die."

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...food-aid-is-running-out-35811304.html[/quote]​

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Ethiopia: Hunger During Worst Drought In 60 Years

SHEBEDINO, Ethiopia — Malnourished children are flocking into feeding centers in this forested corner of southern Ethiopia after a drought in East Africa extended into this normally fertile region.

While the famine in southern Somalia has grabbed headlines, southern Ethiopia is teetering on the brink of a food crisis. The Ethiopian government says 250,000 people need food aid amid what the U.N. says is the worst drought in 60 years. An aid organization and agricultural officials say the number of people who need emergency food aid in Ethiopia is bigger, around 700,000.

The rains never came as they usually do late February to the end of May. If they fail again in August, there won't be a harvest in September.

People without food aid will "definitely be in trouble," World Food Program officer Yohannes Desta said. "Do these people have enough resilience to survive? I don't think so."

Tsegaye Tilahun, a corn farmer, said he is worried that September won't bring him any yields at all. His previous crops this year ended up being cattle feed after heavy rains destroyed them. After a long dry spell, the plants couldn't absorb the sudden heavy rain.

As a result of losing all his corn and coffee crops, Tsegaye's family went hungry. His daughter Eskael became dangerously underweight and he brought her to a government-run feeding center in Shebedino. He has relied on food handouts for months.

Nurses at a food center in Shebedino, one of many in the region, said they see about 50 severely malnourished children a month. A year ago an average of only six underfed children received treatment there per month.

Berhanu, a 1 1/2-year-old baby, has twig-thin arms and weighs half of what he should. Shundure Tekamo, a mother of six, brought Berhanu to the feeding center for the second time in six months.

"I'm caught in a dilemma," she said. "I want to save my child but who is feeding my children at home?"

Shundure said there was no food to feed them when she left home and she expects her husband to come up with an alternative to "improve our life."

This ethnically diverse region is overpopulated. Most families have six or more people, but farmers till only tiny, state-owned plots.

Farmers should diversify crops and have smaller families, Yohannes said. The Ethiopian government, which is giving out cash to the hungry as food reserves have dwindled, prefers to resettle southern farmers to less densely populated and more fertile areas, mostly hundreds of miles (kilometers) away. This year 86 farmers from Shebedino who the government says have volunteered for resettlement have been moved to Benchmaji in the southwest of Ethiopia.

While the authorities claim the resettled farmers are better off, Yohannes questions its success. "The problem is that people get resettled to places with a different culture and different agricultural practices," he said.

While chopping with his machete at a false banana tree stem – an edible, drought-resistant plant indigenous to Ethiopia's south – to feed his donkey, Tessema Naramo said he is one of the few villagers whose children don't face malnutrition. Tessema is an 80-year old farmer and father of nine. His oldest is 37. The youngest is 5.

"The weather has changed and ruined my harvest in the last couple of years, so I diversified my crops," he said. Next to the usual corn and coffee, he planted banana and avocado trees and started growing eucalyptus trees, which people use for firewood or house-building material. It turned out to be a lucrative business.

But now amid the prolonged drought, Naramo is using his crops to feed his own family, "and even that is hardly enough."

With the possibility that things may turn more dire if the rains don't come, it still not clear how many people need food aid here. The government says 250,000 do, though local officials in the south's agricultural bureau asked the government to provide aid to at least 385,000 more people, said Getatchew Lema, a local food security coordinator. The World Food Program says at least 700,000 require emergency relief.

Ethiopia: Hunger During Worst Drought In 60 Years

PETA's Mass Murder

Kenya and other countries there have a huge game reserve that would solve all the hunger in the area. Not to mention how much food they could buy if they were allowed to sell ivory again.

 

[anotherlife]

Ethiopia: Hunger During Worst Drought In 60 Years

SHEBEDINO, Ethiopia — Malnourished children are flocking into feeding centers in this forested corner of southern Ethiopia after a drought in East Africa extended into this normally fertile region.

While the famine in southern Somalia has grabbed headlines, southern Ethiopia is teetering on the brink of a food crisis. The Ethiopian government says 250,000 people need food aid amid what the U.N. says is the worst drought in 60 years. An aid organization and agricultural officials say the number of people who need emergency food aid in Ethiopia is bigger, around 700,000.

The rains never came as they usually do late February to the end of May. If they fail again in August, there won't be a harvest in September.

People without food aid will "definitely be in trouble," World Food Program officer Yohannes Desta said. "Do these people have enough resilience to survive? I don't think so."

Tsegaye Tilahun, a corn farmer, said he is worried that September won't bring him any yields at all. His previous crops this year ended up being cattle feed after heavy rains destroyed them. After a long dry spell, the plants couldn't absorb the sudden heavy rain.

As a result of losing all his corn and coffee crops, Tsegaye's family went hungry. His daughter Eskael became dangerously underweight and he brought her to a government-run feeding center in Shebedino. He has relied on food handouts for months.

Nurses at a food center in Shebedino, one of many in the region, said they see about 50 severely malnourished children a month. A year ago an average of only six underfed children received treatment there per month.

Berhanu, a 1 1/2-year-old baby, has twig-thin arms and weighs half of what he should. Shundure Tekamo, a mother of six, brought Berhanu to the feeding center for the second time in six months.

"I'm caught in a dilemma," she said. "I want to save my child but who is feeding my children at home?"

Shundure said there was no food to feed them when she left home and she expects her husband to come up with an alternative to "improve our life."

This ethnically diverse region is overpopulated. Most families have six or more people, but farmers till only tiny, state-owned plots.

Farmers should diversify crops and have smaller families, Yohannes said. The Ethiopian government, which is giving out cash to the hungry as food reserves have dwindled, prefers to resettle southern farmers to less densely populated and more fertile areas, mostly hundreds of miles (kilometers) away. This year 86 farmers from Shebedino who the government says have volunteered for resettlement have been moved to Benchmaji in the southwest of Ethiopia.

While the authorities claim the resettled farmers are better off, Yohannes questions its success. "The problem is that people get resettled to places with a different culture and different agricultural practices," he said.

While chopping with his machete at a false banana tree stem – an edible, drought-resistant plant indigenous to Ethiopia's south – to feed his donkey, Tessema Naramo said he is one of the few villagers whose children don't face malnutrition. Tessema is an 80-year old farmer and father of nine. His oldest is 37. The youngest is 5.

"The weather has changed and ruined my harvest in the last couple of years, so I diversified my crops," he said. Next to the usual corn and coffee, he planted banana and avocado trees and started growing eucalyptus trees, which people use for firewood or house-building material. It turned out to be a lucrative business.

But now amid the prolonged drought, Naramo is using his crops to feed his own family, "and even that is hardly enough."

With the possibility that things may turn more dire if the rains don't come, it still not clear how many people need food aid here. The government says 250,000 do, though local officials in the south's agricultural bureau asked the government to provide aid to at least 385,000 more people, said Getatchew Lema, a local food security coordinator. The World Food Program says at least 700,000 require emergency relief.

Ethiopia: Hunger During Worst Drought In 60 Years

PETA's Mass Murder

Kenya and other countries there have a huge game reserve that would solve all the hunger in the area. Not to mention how much food they could buy if they were allowed to sell ivory again.

You forgot to write "hehehe" at the end of your post.

But assuming you didn't, the only possible redeeming debate about that idiocy is that there is no more ivory left that the poaching cartels haven't already ear marked for China. So my proposal is to lift the ban on trading human baby sculls as Chinese alternative medicine. That will immedicately solve both the famine and the overpopulation problem of east Africa. Hehehe.