Famine cover up: Meles accused of masking true scale of hunger crisis

Famine cover up: Meles accused of "'burying his head in the sand'

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children

In the next few months 6.2 million Ethiopians will need food aid.

Twenty-five years since the famine that killed about one million Ethiopians,

the country still can’t feed at least 12 million of its people.

In the next few months 6.2 million Ethiopians will need food aid, the United

Nations will warn this week. But the country seems reluctant to admit to the

rest of the world that it needs help. Twenty-five years since the famine
that killed about one million Ethiopians, when Bob Geldof appealed for
people to feed the world, and the world rushed food aid to five million
starving people, the country still can’t feed at least 12 million of its
people even in its good years.

Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi is keen to shift the focus to his position
representing Africa in the Copenhagen climate change negotiations next
month. He blames climate change for unpredictable rainfall, leading to poor
harvests. While in public, they talk up the progress the Eastern African
country has made since the 1984 famine, Ethiopian and Western officials
privately accuse Mr Meles of burying his head in the sand, according to
reports in The Times newspaper. There have been claims that official
assessments of the scale of the country’s humanitarian needs have been
delayed and obstructed and access to some areas where the situation is worst
has been blocked. On Friday, the United Nations will announce that the
number needing food aid has risen to nine million. But the Government wants
to change the way the figures are calculated to lower that figure to 5
million. The UN and donor countries are worried this will mask the true
scale of the crisis. There are also allegations that food aid is being
withheld from the regime’s opponents.

Britain is Ethiopia’s second biggest donor and gives the country £200
million a year, but it is now turning up the pressure on the Horn of Africa
country amid growing concerns for the coming months. “The Government has
just got to embrace the crisis and not be frightened of the statistics,”

Gareth Thomas, a minister with the Department for International Development,
said on Monday. “It is different from 1984 but there’s still huge need.
There’s got to be a recognition that if we are going to stop children from
being malnourished and keep people alive we have got to have accurate
information and we’ve got to have it in a timely manner.” Speaking before a
meeting with Mr Meles, Mr Thomas said his main message was the need for
change, and that while food aid does help in the short-term, it won’t stop
the hunger crisis reappearing. In 1984, the country’s population was about
35 million. It is now about 80 million and will have doubled again by 2050.







By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children