Famine Danger Reduced in Ethiopia, Other Areas Critical

Relief agencies believe the threat of another major famine in Ethiopia has been reduced, but they continue to watch several areas of Africa and other parts of the world with growing concern.

Civil war between separatist rebels controlling the northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigre and the Ethiopian government had cut relief lines earlier this year and placed more than four million people at risk of starvation (CT, May 14, 1990, p. 51). But overland truck convoys proved surprisingly successful in delivering supplies recently to the north, said World Vision International representative Bruce Brander. In addition to food shipments, seeds and other supplies enabled farmers to plant fields in time for a fall harvest.

Relief workers were also encouraged by the announcement at the Bush-Gorbachev summit in June that joint efforts by the United States and the Soviet Union had led the Ethiopian government to stop bombing northern ports to allow relief shipments in. The superpowers also announced a cooperative airlift that will use Soviet transport planes to deliver American rice and sorghum to areas in the north.

Still, as many as one million Ethiopians remain at risk in scattered pockets of hunger. “The scope of the disaster may be reduced,” said Gary Gunn of Food for the Hungry. “But people are dying right now; that’s no less a tragedy.”

Similar situations of war-induced famine remain in neighboring Sudan and Mozambique in southern Africa. Relief workers there continue to discover villages in desperate need of food and medicine, cut off from the world’s view by fighting. “There is lots of hunger we don’t even know about, in areas that are inaccessible,” Brander said.

Relief-and-development agencies point to several other areas of the world in need of special attention, including:

• Angola. Recent drought and a 15-year civil war have combined to escalate fears of famine. More than 400,000 Angolans have fled to other West African countries. Not until last October did government authorities acknowledge that there was a crisis and ask for assistance.

• Vietnam and Cambodia. These Southeast Asian nations have attracted the attention of relief workers not because of emerging crises, but because of increased openness, which has revealed the depth of need for medical supplies, prosthetics, and the development of clean water and stable food sources.

• Central America. An estimated 1.5 million people have been displaced in the region by violence and economics, many relocating in slums and makeshift camps in and near major cities.

• While natural disasters cannot be predicted, they can be anticipated in some regions, says Bas Vanderzalm of World Relief. For example, hurricane season in the Caribbean (August to November) will very likely produce at least one major disaster. And while the storm may pass in days—and the press coverage in a few weeks—the damage can take years to repair.

“These kinds of problems don’t go away in two weeks,” Vanderzalm says. “But [the American public] has a very short-term mentality. The first step is to help stabilize life for those people—that’s what’s viewed by the media, and then they leave. But next comes a long-term rehabilitation, and that takes time.”

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