Sharis Mohammed walked nine miles with her seven children in search of help after her family's livestock died. But when she reached this tiny town in southeastern Ethiopia, she found no international food aid.
Published:
13 April 2000 y., Thursday
An estimated six children die each day in this small corner of the Horn of Africa, where millions of people are suffering from a three-year drought and the resulting food shortage.
Sharis is one of 7.7 million Ethiopians threatened with starvation. Aid agencies say a potential human catastrophe looms. Ethiopia, mired in a 23-month border conflict with Eritrea, has appealed for 920,500 tons of food aid because it can't muster sufficient resources on its own.
Its own food reserves, which should be at 400,000 tons, are down to 50,000 tons, regional government officials say. Only half the relief food Ethiopia asked for has been pledged by donors.
In Denan, 375 miles southeast of the capital Addis Ababa in Ethiopia's Somali region, as many as five families arrive daily at the camp, which is already home to 6,000 people.
Most are nomads who rely on cattle, sheep, goats and camels for food and income. When their livestock dies, they have no alternative but to trek to a town in search of aid.
The U.N. World Food Program estimates that more than 90 percent of the cattle and 65 percent of the sheep in the region have died. The gritty earth of Denan is baked hard, and nothing grows from it. Temperatures regularly rise above 100 degrees. International aid workers say no feeding center has been set up in Denan because the town of 7,000 lacks clean water with which to mix the children's food into gruel.
Šaltinis:
AP
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Hundreds of New Yorkers enjoy a dip in rubbish dumpsters that have been converted into swimming pools as part of the city's summer initiative.
more »
On 19 July, a school, which had been reconstructed with the funding from Lithuania’s Special Mission in Afghanistan, was opened in the village of Suri, the Zabul Province in the South of Afghanistan.
more »
Self-employed workers and their partners will enjoy better social protection – including the right to maternity leave for the first time – under new EU legislation that enters into force today.
more »
A 45 U.S. dollar garage sale purchase turns out to be long lost Ansel Adams negatives worth 200 million dollars.
more »
A Turkish toddler survives a three-floor fall from a balcony when he lands on a stack of plastic pipes.
more »
Around 200 Magellan penguins, most of them dead, wash up on Uruguay's beaches.
more »
Europeans are calling on Member States to boost their efforts to improve road safety, according to a survey published by the European Commission today.
more »
With an increase in life expectancy in China has come an accompanying rise in dementia cases, which may leave the younger generation struggling to cope with treatment and care.
more »
These baby sea turtles should be swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, but instead they are recovering at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi.
more »
Reviving the Latin American tradition of the afternoon siesta, a hotel in Argentina brings siesta to the corporate workforce.
more »