Famine Looming in Ethiopia

High_Gravity

Belligerent Drunk
Nov 19, 2010
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Ethiopia: Hunger During Worst Drought In 60 Years

r-ETHIOPIA-HUNGER-DROUGHT-large570.jpg


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
 
Ethiopia part of the famine too...
:eusa_eh:
Rising hunger in south Ethiopia despite lush green
August 17, 2011 — 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."

About 1.3 million southerners received aid earlier this year from a government safety net program that ended in June, said Yohannes Desta, a World Food Program officer. Most of those people, whom Desta calls the "poorest of the poor," still require emergency relief, but instead must scrape by on the few crops they have left or through the goodwill of more fortunate family members or neighbors. 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 1½-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.

MORE
 
this right here is Paint Creek Texas ;)......what you see is a lush, a veritable garden of Eden compared to whats going in the south, we are going thru the worst drought in 100 years, worse than the grapes of wrath era....I am sorry for the Ethiopians, truly but, well, 70 years of colonialism then 25 or so of the ever helpful World Bank, IMF, UN et al...and? there they sit.

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Famine causin' measles deaths...
:eusa_eh:
Alarming Rise of Measles Deaths in Dollo Ado Refugee Complex
August 16, 2011 - The United Nations refugee agency reports death rates in one of four refugee camps at the Dollo Ado complex in Ethiopia have reached alarming levels. The UNHCR says it suspects a combination of measles and malnutrition brought on by famine is the major cause of death.
More than 118,000 Somalis live at the Dollo Ado refugee complex in Ethiopia. More than 78,000 of these refugees, fleeing drought and famine, have arrived in Dollo Ado this year. U.N. refugee spokesman, Adrian Edwards, says an assessment of mortality finds a sharp rise in death rates in one of the four camps at Dollo Ado. “Since the Kobe refugee camp opened in June, an average of 10 children under the age of five have been dying each day. An outbreak of suspected measles, combined with high rates of acute malnutrition is thought to be the major cause of death. Across all Dollo Ado sites, 148 cases and 11 deaths due to suspected measles have been reported. This deadly combination has historically caused similar death rates in previous famine crises in this region,” Edwards stated.

Children who are healthy generally do not die of measles. But, for those who are malnourished, this preventable disease can be fatal. And, so it is proving to be for many of the acutely malnourished Somali children, whose health has been severely weakened due to drought and famine. Kobe houses 25,000 Somali refugees. The UNHCR and its partners on Monday completed a mass vaccination campaign against measles. All children between the ages of six months and 15 years were immunized against this killer disease.

Edwards says vaccination campaigns will begin in other camps in the coming days. “There is a need to encourage parents to return with their children to health centers for continued treatment for malnutrition, and to actively identify children who are sick to ensure they receive immediate help. UNHCR is already working with refugee leaders and outreach workers to raise awareness of measles symptoms and hygiene promotion,” he said.

Most of the refugees arriving from Somalia are from rural areas. UNHCR spokesman Edwards says the camps in Ethiopia may be the first time the Somalis have ever gone to a health care facility. He says it is crucial to make the refugees aware of the health and nutrition programs that are available to them. He says the UNHCR, together with the Ethiopian government and other partners, are working to improve nutrition, water supply and sanitation in the camps. He says this can help bring down the high mortality rate. Measles is a highly contagious disease. The UNHCR says action to prevent people from dying of this disease is the number one priority facing aid agencies.

Source
 
Lot of underfed kids in Horn of Africa famine...
:eek:
UN: 300,000 children malnourished in Horn of Africa
2011-08-20 -- The head of the UN Children's Fund says more than 300,000 children in the Horn of Africa are severely malnourished, and in imminent risk of dying from drought and famine.
The U.N. agency says tens of thousands of people have already died in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea and that more than 12 million people in the region need food aid.

UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said on Friday "the crisis in the Horn of Africa is a human disaster becoming a human catastrophe."

In Somalia alone, he said, 1.4 million children are affected. An estimated 390 thousand are suffering from malnutrition, and nearly 140 thousand are facing imminent death from "severe acute malnutrition."

Source
 
Africa is cursed by nature.

It has been slowly turning into a desert for the last 2000 years.
 
Global warming gonna cause millions to starve in Africa & Asia by 2050...
:eek:
Global warming will cause starvation of millions in Africa and Asia by 2050
Sunday 14th April, 2013 - Millions of people might face starvation by 2050 as a result of extreme temperature globally.
A report has warned that people in Africa and Asia could also become destitute as staple more than double in price by 2050 as a result of extreme temperatures, floods and droughts that will transform the way the world farms. As food experts gather at two major conferences to discuss how to feed the nine billion people expected to be alive in 2050, leading scientists have told the Observer that food insecurity risks turning parts of Africa into permanent disaster areas.

The experts warned that rising temperatures will also have a drastic effect on access to basic foodstuffs, with potentially dire consequences for the poor. According to the Guardian, Frank Rijsberman, head of the world's 15 international CGIAR crop research centres, which study food insecurity, said that food production will have to rise 60 percent by 2050 just to keep pace with expected global population increase and changing demand.

A US Government report has said America's agricultural economy is set to undergo dramatic changes over the next three decades, as warmer temperatures devastate crops. The research by 60 scientists has predicted that all crops will be affected by the temperature shift as well as livestock and fruit harvests.

The Africa News - Global warming will cause starvation of millions in Africa and Asia by 2050
 
Ethiopia: Hunger During Worst Drought In 60 Years

r-ETHIOPIA-HUNGER-DROUGHT-large570.jpg


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


Last week UN said it was Uganda! (Yawn)

It appears the UN and its allies are again on their propaganda route: Remember several months ago when the UN declared famine in Somalia and Somali pirates downgraded allegation to nothing but propaganda (and I then agreed with Somali "pirates")? And then in less than three months later, the UN announced Somalia was free of famine?

Every nation has its tilling and harvest season, and a tilling and harvest season being from four months to about five months. Any sane person knows a famine, as declared then by the UN and its allies, could never have been over in three months!

I therefore think the UN and its allies are again about to use technology to devastate landlocked Ethiopia and Uganda, as they have done in numerous occasions in other developing nations - Weather warfare


UN declares famine in Somalia and Somali Pirates say it's Propaganda - Nile Bowie: SOMALIA: FAMINE FOR PROFIT AND THE EAST AFRICAN FOOD CRISIS


Technology Warfare - HAARP.net - The Military's Pandora's Box by Dr. Nick Begich and Jeane Manning



I truly wish (though concerned at mind games at taxpayers' expense) that the US government and its sadistic allies would head to outer space for subjects to conquer and colonize - NASA And MIT Mission Will Search For Habitable Planets - Forbes
 
That's a fascinating take on the goings on in Africa, LAfrique.

Thanks for posting it.

I have no germane comments because I know next to nothing about Africa.

As to some cabal of monsters creating droughts?

Why?
 
I wish you sadists would take a nap. Mother Nature is good, and there are more good people on Planet Earth than there are bad once.
 
Malian war resulting in food crisis...
:eek:
Aid Groups Warn of Potential Food Crisis in Northern Mali
April 26, 2013 — International aid agencies warned Thursday that food insecurity in northern Mali will reach “emergency levels” within two months if more attention is not given to humanitarian issues. They are now calling for increased food aid distribution and for the full disbursement of requested emergency aid funds.
A joint analysis by four international aid agencies found Thursday that up to two-thirds of the people in Mali’s northern regions of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal do not have enough to eat. "Right now the north of Mali is in a crisis situation, said Philippe Conraud is the Mali country director for Oxfam. "It’s a level three out of four. The fourth one, emergency, might be reached over the next couple of months if nothing is done. So what that means in terms of [food] reserves, and in terms of us, is that, in that situation, we need to provide free food distribution, massive food distribution." Conraud said in some cases, the food just is not there for sale. In other cases, the food is there but locals do not have the money to buy it.

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A girl gathers rice spilled from a humanitarian food convoy that arrived from the Malian capital Bamako in the northeastern city of Gao

Many shopkeepers and traders fled the region due to fighting and ethnic tensions. And Algeria closed its border with Mali in January when the French-led military intervention began. That has made it difficult for supplies to reach the markets. Banks were looted in northern Mali in April 2012 when the region fell to rebel groups, and they have not reopened. Oxfam reports that the price of food staples like pasta, rice and sugar doubled in some areas between October 2012 and February 2013. Aid group Action Against Hunger says that daily wages in northern Mali fell from $2.50 in 2012 to between $1.50 and $2 in the beginning of 2013.

The head of Solidarity International in Mali, Franck Abeille, said this has left many people in a very precarious situation. "We are not at the point where people have nothing to eat at all, but it’s quite hard for them," he said. "They are reducing the number of meals per day. They are all selling all their livestock. Some don’t have the capacity to find food. Some have to contract more credit and more credit, which could be very hard for them to later refund."

Abeille said that to keep the situation from getting worse, humanitarian aid must not only be brought in as quickly as possible, but it must be adapted to each community’s needs. "[For example], if you are in some places where the markets are not supplied at all and you have no food available, then you have to do some food distribution. If you are in some places where the markets are supplied, then you can do some cash allowance programs. So solutions exist on the humanitarian side," said Abeille. He said that the problem now is funding. As of April 19, only 26 percent of the U.N.’s requested emergency aid money had been received.

Aid Groups Warn of Potential Food Crisis in Northern Mali
 
Africa is cursed by nature.

It has been slowly turning into a desert for the last 2000 years.

Some parts of it are also blessed be nature.

I've seen few places on this earth as fertile as Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo or Benin. You can throw a stick in that part of the world and have a tree a few weeks later.

Desertification is a big problem, but largely in West Africa (Mali, BF, Mauritania) and around the Horn, less so elsewhere.

Also, the desertification has been intensified by poor farming practices - cutting down trees for firewood, polluting water sources, and creating erosion by removing forests from hillsides.
 
Worst drought in decades leaves 10 million Ethiopians hungry...

10 Million in Ethiopia Face Hunger After Worst Drought in Decades
December 08, 2015 - Save the Children launches urgent call for food aid but says that is only a temporary fix and world leaders meeting in Paris must act on climate change
Ethiopia is dealing with its worst drought in 50 years. Save the Children has launched an urgent call for food aid but says that is only a temporary fix and world leaders meeting in Paris must act on climate change. Ethiopia's government says a staggering 10.1 million people will face critical food shortages in 2016 — and that more than half of those are children. Adding to that, an estimated 400,000 children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition — a condition that can lead to stunting and physical and mental problems. John Graham, Save the Children's Country Director in Ethiopia, says this year’s crisis is the result of a cascade of meteorological dominoes — a severe drought related to the El Nino weather phenomenon ruined two major expected rainfalls this year.

As a result, the next harvest is not expected to come until June of next year. Speaking to VOA News from Addis Ababa, Graham said: "So we’re seeing one thing piling on top of another and it’s really affecting the rural population very badly.” The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that around 80 percent of Ethiopians work in the agriculture sector — and most of those are subsistence farmers who rely on rain-fed farming. That is part of the reason that this nation sees food crises time and time again — farmers lack the means and the knowledge to work around weather challenges. Save the Children is appealing for about $100 million in donor aid from the international community — but he says this year is the slowest response he’s seen to such a crisis in his 18 years in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government has already committed a record sum — $192 million.

E3A665E9-0D82-4B5A-84B8-B0162A72C761_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy1_cw0.jpg

A mother quenches her malnourished child's thirst while waiting for food handouts at a health center in drought-stricken remote Somali region of Eastern Ethiopia, also known as the Ogaden​
Graham says he also wants to see bigger, more meaningful, change coming from world leaders who are currently meeting in Paris for climate change talks. “I’d say that we should be spending a lot more effort on adaptation of people who are badly affected by climate change, and helping them to transition to new livelihoods, to be able to cope with the impact of climate change," he said. "Because so much of the focus doesn’t seem to be on that area at all. It’s on other things that are worthwhile, like making sure that there is a reduction in the carbon emissions and so on. But we should also care about those people, especially the poorest people, who are dramatically impacted by these climate changes, and why aren’t we investing more in helping them to adapt?”

This is one of many questions that climate change negotiators are asking this week. Developing countries are pushing to have funding for them to adapt to climate change included in any binding international agreement that comes out of the Paris summit.

10 Million in Ethiopia Face Hunger After Worst Drought in Decades

See also:

UN Seeks Record $20.1 Billion for Humanitarian Aid
December 07, 2015 - Strained by a year of multiple wars and mass refugee migrations, the United Nations is making the largest humanitarian appeal in its 70-year history.
The organization and affiliated agencies are seeking $20.1 billion in funding to help some 87 million people in 37 different regions and countries next year. "Suffering in the world has reached levels not seen in a generation," said the U.N.'s humanitarian aid chief, Stephen O'Brien.

D74CD6A7-6B36-4647-82BA-DFEB99958F93_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy7_cw0.jpg

Syrian refugees and other migrants struggle to get dry food during aid distribution on the Greek island of Kos​

The U.N. agencies for health, refugees and humanitarian assistance – known as WHO, UNHCR and OCHA – said Monday that needs are greatest in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan and Yemen. Great need is expected to persist in those war-ravaged countries next year and is likely to grow elsewhere with disruptive El Nino weather patterns predicted for 2016.

The agencies already are being squeezed in their efforts to deliver aid. They sought $19.9 billion in their 2015 appeals but face a record funding gap of $10.2 billion. Governments supply most of the money in the U.N.'s annual appeal. The funds are used to buy food, shelter, medicine and other basic needs for vulnerable populations.

UN Seeks Record $20.1 Billion for Humanitarian Aid
 
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Save the Children runnin' out of money for Ethiopian Drought Crisis...

Save the Children Faces Funding Gap for Ethiopian Drought Crisis
Saturday 23rd January, 2016 - Save the Children charity said Friday it had raised less than a third of what it needed for its campaign to help cope with drought which has left 10.2 million people critically short of food.
Experts say the drought is worse than the one in 1984, when years of conflict followed by the failure of rains led to a famine that killed up to a million people. This time, is better positioned to respond after rapid economic growth, but still risks being overwhelmed as it digs into strategic food reserves. "The scale of the need is really huge and has outstripped the Ethiopian government's ability to do this on their own," Save the Children President Carolyn Miles told Reuters from the United States after a visit to Ethiopia.

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The drought has mainly been blamed on El Nino, a weather pattern causing rainfall to decline in some areas of the world and causing floods elsewhere. Save the Children has been seeking $100 million for the next 12 to 18 months, but so far has only $30 million. "One of the hardest things right now is getting the awareness up," Miles said.

The U.N. World Food Program is also facing a funding shortfall. It needs $480 million to help meet the needs of about 7.6 million of 10.2 million at risk in coming months, but has raised just under $60 million, a WFP official said. Save the Children has ranked a Category 1 emergency, like the Syrian crisis. Miles said the Syrian conflict, rumbling on for five years, had "really stretched the humanitarian system," making it harder to find international support for Ethiopia.

MORE
 
And we'll go in again to help distribute the food, and the warlords will take the food again, so the military will arrive and see us as Occupiers...........and everyone will start shooting at us again.........and we will shoot back................and then leave and more will starve again.....................

Oops..........that was Somalia...............but we got a great movie out of it.




Why the hell do I remember this stuff???????????
 

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