Twin foes of drought and civil war

Press, 6 May 1983, Page 12

Twin foes of drought and civil war

From the “Economist,” London

The kidnapping of relief workers in Koram, northern Ethiopia, highlights the double suffering of that region. Guerrillas from the Tigre People’s Liberation Front (the same movement that in 1976 held a British family hostage for eight months) seized Koram last week and on April 21 kidnapped seven expatriate relief workers, including the five-member team from the Save the Children Fund.

On April 23, the guerrillas returned and seized the nine members of the Catholic secretariat (the aid section of Ethiopia’s Roman Catholic churches).

This team included an American priest and two Italian nuns as well as several Ethiopians.

It is not known what happened to Ethiopian government workers in Koram or whether the refugees collected there still remain — without outside assistance — or are trying to get back to their homes.

The Tigrean rebels have been fighting a propaganda war against the relief operation in Ethiopia because they claim, first, that the relief is grossly misused by Colonel Mengistu’s government and, second, that the suffering is even worse.in the rebel-held areas. Now they have followed propaganda with violence; the relief workers, who include two doctors, have presumably been kidnapped in a bid to prove to them that aid

is not reaching the people who need it most.

The voluntary relief organisations deny the misuse of aid. Some of it may not be reaching its intended destination but much of it certainly is. They point to the confusion that can arise in a country where every food container or grain sack is used again and again. The marks on a container or sack are not necessarily an accurate guide to where the stuff inside came from.

The relief agencies accept that there is suffering in areas that are not accessible to them. The Tigrean rebels claim that more than 1 million people are at risk in Tigre province; Save the Children’s own estimate that 400,000 Tigreans may be in need of help is large enough. The Tigreans get some help from the Relief Society of Tigre, which works from Sudan through the rebel movement, but clearly need more. Yet the people in Koram needed the help too. The Ethiopian Government estimates that some 3 million people altogether are affected by the latest crop failure. In some regions this is the fourth consecutive year of drought. So far as possible, food is distributed in the famine areas, but people who live in remote places, or who have been displaced by the fighting, are forced to journey, often long distances, in search of food and water at distribution centres.

Koram was one such centre. In normal times it has 3000-4000 people, but in the past six months more than 45,600 people have swarmed into the town. Of these about 25,000 stayed on, either because they were too weak to make the journey home with their rations or because they live too far away to return home between the monthly distributions.

New arrivals, which average 30 a day, are usually in poor shape; they may have walked for as long as five days with little food or water.

In Koram, just before the kidnapping, the scene was bleak enough. It will be worse now. Most of the people who stayed on in Koram were camped in the open in a site about one kilometre north of the town.

They huddled together under shared blankets through the bitter nights; some tried to make shelters from the sparse twigs available. Others took refuge in the doorways and alleys of the town itself. A few found room in barn-like shelters fashioned from corrugated iron. Inadequate food, overcrowding and, for most, no shelter have led to illnesses and death. The kidnapping removes the doctors and nurses who were looking after the sick.

Another distribution centre is the village of Zui Hanusit in the Gonder region. The surrounding landscape is bleak: no living plants, just scorched earth, dry terraces and the skeletons of trees. More than 5500 people have collected at this inhospitable place and another 20,000 receive rations there and take them home.

The village is inaccessible by road for food trucks. Relief supplies are being flown in by a voluntary agency up to eight times a day. Yet people here still suffer from a shortage of water: the nearest source is a three-hour walk over rough and mountainous terrain.

Except when it rains: both Koram and Zui Hanusit have been hit by short, sharp rainstorms over the past week or so. They provide something to drink but have also, by killing people through cold, underlined the urgency of the need for shelter. The problem is that there is nothing with which these people can build. Deforestation has led to an acute shortage of wood both for building and for burning.

The recent rain has encouraged some farmers to return to their villages and start ploughing for

next season, but there are no seeds to give them. Also, ploughing is usually done by oxen and most farmers have lost all their cattle in the drought. In one district in Gonder, 32,700 head of cattle are said to have perished since early 1982.

The number of people who have died as a result of the drought cannot be estimated. Relief officials see only those who have made it to the distribution points. People may have died on the way and others have died in their villages. It is clear, however, that the number is far fewer than in the 1973-74 drought, when 200,000 people are believed to have died in Welo, Tigre, and northern Showa alone.

To a large extent this improvement is due to the work of Ethiopia’s Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, which was set up in 1979. The commission has organised a fairly efficient distribution network and its early warning system enabled it, so far as funds and donations permitted, to be prepared for the effects of this year’s crop failure.

Even so, vast numbers of people are without any assistance. It is estimated that in the past few months some 10,000 people, mainly from Tigre, have sought relief across the border in eastern Sudan.

In an effort to lessen the cyclical effects of drought, the Ethiopian relief commission has been trying to resettle families in the south. Over the past few years people have been moved from the worst hit areas to the southern regions of Bale and Sidamo. The aim is to help the settlers to become self-sufficient.

As with nearly all such resettlement schemes, it is proving very hard to carry out. Some of the difficulties may be reflected in the big Government reshuffle that took place last month, including a new head for the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission.