Ethiopia to fight drought

Press, 6 October 1984, Page 11

Ethiopia to fight drought

NZPA-Reuter Addis Ababa

Doctors in Ethiopia say that up to 40 people are dying daily at one food station alone in the country’s worst drought for at least a decade. The Government had now given priority to an emergency campaign to ease the plight of six million drought victims, a senior relief expert said.

Dawit Wolde Giorgis, head of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, said yesterday that drought relief would take priority over all development efforts.

Mr Dawit gave no figures for the number of drought deaths, but doctors at the Korem feeding station, north of Addis Ababa, said that some 40 were dying daily, compared with 20 a month ago. Relief officials say that

this year’s rain failure was worse than before because previously unaffected southern areas had also been hit.

Mr Dawit appealed for more Western aid and expressed disappointment and regret at the “unsatisfactory relief assistance provided by the international community.”

What food aid Ethiopia was receiving — it appealed for more than 400,000 tonnes in August — was too little and was arriving too late, he said. The United Nations says that only 155,000 tonnes of 354,000 pledged had arrived by the middle of last month.

Mr Dawit said that the Government’s emergency campaign would include a water conservation programme, the building of small dams and irrigation systems, and an education campaign.