Ethiopia - 30 years on

Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

BBC's Mike Wooldridge revisits the road where 30 years ago, desperate people walked miles from remote villages hoping to find food and medical help for their relatives.

“Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plains outside Korem, it lights up a biblical famine – now, in the 20th century.” 

These dramatic words formed the opening of a BBC report broadcast on October the 23rd, 1984 about the unfolding Ethiopian famine, one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history, and one which haunted a generation.

That iconic report helped frame my teenage years. I was among the millions around the world moved by the horrifying images of starving babies and sobbing, grieving mothers and shocked fathers, the grandmothers and grandfathers, their dignity lost as death closed in.

Politics mixed with natural disaster seemed to be the problem, we were told, while musicians believed they had the answer. Pop songs were released – “Feed the World”, “We Are The World”.   Live Aid and Band Aid concerts were planned to spearhead the global response.

I “Ran the World” along the streets of London with a million others and we all gave money and bought the charity singles.

Three decades on,  I have travelled back to country with one of the two-man BBC team whose reports shocked the world into action, prompting one of the greatest ever humanitarian relief efforts.

Michael Wooldridge and Michael Buerk flew with Kenyan cameraman Mo Amin on two small World Vision relief planes into one of the of several badly affected areas, Tigray in the north.

The World Vision planes were the only way into “closest thing to hell on earth”, as the BBC reporters put it.

They visited the dust bowl plains and parched valleys of Korem, Alamata and Antsokia and recorded the horror.

Drought, a series of failed harvest and civil war saw tens of thousands stream into the main towns in the belief they would find food and shelter.

But as that famous BBC reported, “they found only death”.

With the devastation recorded, Wooldridge and Buerk once more boarded the World Vision planes for Addis Ababa, from where their films and radio reports were sent back to the UK and beamed around the world.

Their stories sparked an unprecedented global charity out-pouring. And the rest is, as they say, history - albeit a dark, shameful one.

Equally shocked, governments started airdrops within days, and the end of the 1983-85 Ethiopian famine nightmare had begun, though some official 400,000 lost their lives to starvation and hunger related disease (many believe the death toll to be far higher).

Mike Wooldridge and I, together with members of the World Vision Ethiopia team, set out from Addis Ababa on Monday for the long drive north to see what had become of those badly affected areas 30 year on, and meet with some of the people who survived “hell on earth”.

We found a country greatly changed thanks to on-going resilience programmes run in partnership with the government and NGOs like children’s charity, World Vision.

A COUNTRY GREATLY CHANGED

Antsokia was dubbed the “Valley of Death”, but as we drove along the road built by World Vision, we saw a fertile river valley in full cultivation.

Here is grown all manner of foodstuff – cereals like teff, corn, wheat, sorghum.

Citrus fruit farms bloom and healthy livestock graze.

Much of the produce is sold locally and around Ethiopia, with some even exported overseas, providing not only food security for the country but also jobs, incomes - and hopes and dreams - for locals.

Mike and I visited the thriving market in Antsokia, a bustling arena of traders and shoppers clutching mobile phones and fistfuls of cash - stark contrast to 30 years ago when desperate people came here to beg for food that did not exist, and where many died.

 “I was 25 during the famine in 1984 and I remember the aid planes that finally came and dropped food,” Antsokia farmer Abebe Aragaw told us, sweeping his hand towards the valley.

“It was a horrific time. Four to five people a day were dying in my village,” he explained.

Today, aged 55, Abebe grows several crash crops including teff and coffee. Some of his teff harvest is among produce sent for export to countries like Israel.

 Abebe’s fruit orchid provides mangoes, avocados, oranges, limes, bananas – produce he sells locally or onto the national market.

“I make a good living now. My five children are all being educated with one at university. The famine was awful but things today are very different.”  

Like hundreds in the area, Abebe has benefitted from resilience programmes run in partnership with the government and World Vision.

People here are taught modern productive agricultural techniques, such as organic fertilising and crop rotation methods that improve soil quality. They are shown  how to grow new, sellable crops and sustain themselves in good times and lean periods.

They also learn how to work the land to their advantage, understanding sustainability, building water conservation projects, irrigation channels, planting trees and plants on the mountainsides to prevent soil erosion – all armour in the battle against the extreme climate.

Rainfall shortages, accentuated by the effects of climate change, continue to menace.

“In the famine there were 15 to 20 people dying a day. In this area, once known as the Valley of Death, everything has changed,” says Dereje Hailu, the manager of World Vision’s programme in Antsokia.

Such successes are mirrored throughout the region, which today is fertile and verdant after a good rainy season. That precious rainfall along with effective management and administration, has provided another bumper harvest.

“Much has been achieved. I see everywhere evidence of food security,” says Mike as we survey the plains of Korem, a breathtaking landscape stuffed with wheat and livestock.

Electric pylons run across the land and a new technical college is being built on a hill side where 30 years ago thousands came to die from hunger.

In Antsokia, 99.4 per cent of children are now classed as adequately nourished under World Health Organisation standards.

Other figures are equally impressive: 89 springs have been capped and nearly 200 kilometres of piping laid to provide a fresh water supply. Three quarters of the valley’s 86,000 residents have access to drinking water as a result.

Most children receive education, with enrolment for primary school classes and literacy rates standing as high as 90 per cent respectively.

Immunization and other medical care help sustain a healthy population that can work the land and improve their lives.

We visited a bakery in Alamata, one of the badly hit towns and down the high street of which Live Aid creator Bob Geldof once walked to see the famine for himself.

A group of women, part of a “savings business group”, make injera which they now sell to hotels and restaurants.

“We are doing well. We were taught how to set up a business with government and World Vision help. We now plan to expand, to start our own restaurant and buy some vehicles so we can distribute across the area,” says one of the co-owners, Alefu.

Each of the six women make enough money to feed, clothe and send their children to school as well as afford ambition.

Scores of similar enterprise are taking shape.

Of course, challenges lie ahead. Poverty is still evident. There are "hotspots" across Ethiopia susceptible to “shocks” such as drought or other environmental disasters.

Some eight million have been under the government “safety net” scheme, receiving some form of government aid. A disputed number – as many as two million – are said to receive emergency aid.

A rapidly expanding population – in 1984 the country population was 47 million, today it’s around 90 million – is also posing challenges.

But the government and aid agencies believe they can be met.

“I am impressed by what I see today,” says Mike as we head back across the plains and over the mountain passes.

“But when I recall the sound of crying across these plains thirty years ago, I also feel angry that the world did not react sooner. Drought had been going on for 18 months before. But like Ebola, nothing was done,” he adds.

“And I wonder why it has taken so long to get to where we are today,” he says.

We leave with the same collective hope and confidence of the Ethiopians, most clearly better off than ever before, and who believe a deadly 1984-like famine will never happen again.

“The people, like farmer Abebe, won’t allow it,”  says Mike.

I muse how wonderful it would be for the musicians of 30 years ago to come here and see what they helped start.  Perhaps they could stage a concert like Live Aid - only this time to celebrate the success and hopes of newly-empowered generations, like the young market traders and farmers like Abebe in Antsokia, and the ambitious bakers in Alamata, and the optimistic, book and pen-clutching students of Korem.

You can see Mike Wooldridge’s personal journey back to Ethiopia to mark the 30th anniversary of the famine on BBC TV, radio and online throughout Thursday, October 23rd 2014 and over the next week.  

Source: trust.org