These should be reasonably good times for Tadese Konta in the lowlands of southern Ethiopia. The spring rains should have come two months ago, her young husband should be out ploughing and planting their small plot of land, food aid should have arrived, and their cow ought to be giving them a small income.
Instead, Tadese sits with 14 other women cradling her severely malnourished son in a small room in the clinic at Damot Wayde, not knowing whether her family will ever recover from the longest drought anyone has known.
Last week her animal died, the rains had still not come, and because her name is not on the village list for food distribution, she and her three children have eaten next to nothing for months.
She has sold all she can, borrowed from her neighbours and now, fatalistically, she says that she is waiting for God or the government to help.
Neither are in evidence in Damot Wayde.
Nightmare scenario
The largest emergency food aid programme in the world is in top gear, shipping tens of thousands of tons of mainly US grain to Ethiopia each month, but it is proving pitifully inadequate for what are thought to be millions of people in Tadese’s situation.
Ethiopia, in the grip of drought, needs far more food than expected only three months ago.
Because of a sixth poor rainy season in three years, the authorities and western charities overseeing food distribution are beginning to accept that 20 million people — not 13 million as originally thought — may now need help at least until the end of the year to avoid destitution and starvation.
”The situation is deteriorating rapidly and the government’s nightmare scenario is coming true,” said Carol Morgan, the head of Concern Ethiopia, one of the largest western charities in the country.
”Despite food getting in, malnourishment is growing alarmingly in some areas. This is now worse than the 1984 famine, when only 10 million people needed food. The need is far greater.”
A new nutrition assessment carried out by Concern in Damot Wayde county found growing gaps emerging between people’s needs and the assistance they were receiving.
Pre-harvest estimates by the government, the UN and charities in October suggested 22% of the county’s population of 200 000 people would need food aid this year, but this has now been revised to more than 30%, with more than 10% of people found to be already acutely malnourished.
On top of that, the report found that many people who were in real need were ineligible for food aid, and the targeting of the most vulnerable by the government was poor.
The report also found that measles and malaria outbreaks had further weakened the population, and they are now affecting up to 60% of people in some areas. Cattle have been found to be dying in large numbers, and food and grain prices have increased dramatically.
Other aid agencies distributing food in Ethiopia this week reported similar situations. The problem is said by charities to be particularly bad in Ethiopia’s remote southern provinces.
In Arusi Wayde, a small lowland village, farmers said that one in three people were now malnourished and that families were sharing their food aid because there was not nearly enough to go around.
”Most of us have just enough to stay alive, but others are not eligible for food,” said one of the elders in the village.
”More than 400 cattle have died in the past two weeks in this area alone. We depend on them for everything, but we estimate one in seven of our goats, sheep, cows and donkeys have already died and the rest are too weak to plough.”
”The situation is grave and worsening,” said Tilaye Taswe, the head of the nearby health centre which has been overrun by the hungry.
”Every month more and more people are coming to the health centre with malnourished children.
”If the drought continues we can expect many deaths in the next few months. The situation is grave. There are many more people in the villages who need treatment, but we only have two rooms and cannot take more. Even with food aid, at least 10% of people are malnourished. Without it, perhaps 40% of people would be in a very serious situation.”
Twin emergencies
Aid agencies are increasingly concerned that western countries will ignore Ethiopia in the rush to provide food for Iraq.
Only 54% of the two million tons of food thought to have been needed to feed the country three months ago has so far been pledged, and while supplies are guaranteed for the next six weeks, there are uncertainties about whether the world can cope with two of the largest food emergencies known in the past 50 years.
Earlier this week the World Food Programme said that 40 million people in Africa needed food aid.
”In a normal year the food distribution system works well, but it is becoming overstretched,” said Morgan. ”Ethiopia just does not have the resources to distribute the food quickly enough.”
People seen as under threat of famine in Africa:
Ethiopia 20 million
Zimbabwe 7 million
Malawi 3.2 million
Sudan 2.9 million
Zambia 2.7 million
Angola 1.9 million
Eritrea 1 million
Plus around 7,3 million across Swaziland, Congo, Uganda, Congo Brazzaville, Lesotho and Mozambique – Guardian Unlimited Â